Lost and Found – a Novel by Ron Rink

There is one thing that we can depend on here in America, and that is leftovers, especially after a big “food” holiday like Thanksgiving.

There is another thing that goes along with leftovers .. and that is how to make good healthy decisions as to what to do with them. Everyone enjoys the turkey and/or the ham for a few meals after the holiday feast is over. At the same time, though, it’s a good idea to get some of those things out of your refrigerator before the harmful bacteria take up residence.

Here are some of the questions we should all be asking in order to make sure that we stay healthy and keep from ingesting some harmful bacterial critters we won’t like very much.

1. How long before I need to refrigerate my leftovers?

Do this within two hours of purchase or preparation. Be extra careful about getting meat and dairy products into the refrigerator promptly, and make sure they are properly sealed.

2. How long can I keep refrigerated leftovers?

No longer than about three to five days.

3. How do I store leftovers?

The best way is to divide large amounts of leftovers between several clean, shallow storage containers (1-2 inches deep). Make sure the storage lids seal tightly, or cover the container with aluminum foil or plastic wrap. Place storage containers at least 2 inches apart in the refrigerator — this allows cold air to circulate.

4. How long can I keep cooked lean meat and meat dishes?

No longer than three to four days in the refrigerator and two to three months in the freezer. Raw beef can be stored for six months to a year in a freezer set below 0°F.

5. How long can I keep cooked lean poultry and poultry dishes?

Again, no longer than three to four days in the refrigerator and four to six months in the freezer set below 0°F. Raw poultry can be stored for nine months to a year in a freezer set below 0°F.

6. At what temperature should I keep my refrigerator?

Keep it at 40°F.

7. What’s the best way to keep track of how long my leftovers have been in the refrigerator?

Just put a label with the date on every container, and keep the older containers toward the front of the refrigerator.

8. What if I’m unsure how long my leftovers will keep?

Take a daily peek and check them for signs of spoilage, such as an odd odor or color, and be on the lookout for any indication of mold.

9. Can I taste leftovers to see if they are still fresh?

If in doubt, throw it out. Please .. don’t ever taste a questionable leftover.

10. What if my refrigerator is too full for everything?

Just clean it out and get rid of old leftover containers or questionable foods. Cold air needs to circulate to keep foods fresh.

Hope this helps to answer those questions about leftovers.
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Got questions?

Contact me at: http://www.ronrink.com

My email and phone number are at that site. Feel free to contact me. I’m here to help you with your health, nutrition and fitness goals.

Have a healthy and nutritious day!

Shanti,

Ron

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Here we are in the middle of the holiday season and I’m sure you’re feeling the pressures of time more than you do at other times of the year. Am I right? You keep finding yourself up against the clock.

One of the first things to suffer when we get into these “pressure” places, is that we forget to take the time to shop for and cook healthy, nutritious meals for ourselves and our family. It’s seems to be so much easier to just pick up the phone and order take-out or run down to the corner and get some fast-food.

Perhaps I can help a little.

First, here’s an often forgotten fact — Eating regular, healthy meals will actually reduce your stress levels (good nutrition always does that, you know) — and — believe it or not — may help you to manage your time better — (putting mealtimes into your schedule makes it easier to plan your day).

Still, if you’re having trouble carving out time for meal preparation, here are eight simple timesaving tips:

1. Always keep a bag of prewashed salad greens on hand.
2. Cook up big meals once a week and freeze the leftovers in smaller portions. Then reheat your leftovers on a night you’re running behind schedule.
3. Enjoy low-maintenance foods, like canned tuna, poached salmon, low-fat or nonfat plain yogurt, or ready-made hummus.
4. Prepare chopped vegetables once a week and keep them in the fridge.
5. Get up from your desk during your lunch break and take a brisk 20-minute walk. You can skip a workout later in the day.
6. Have a serving of nuts or a cheese stick on hand for days when you can’t stop for a snack.
7. Enjoying an oversized restaurant meal? You’ll enjoy it twice as much if you take half of it home in a doggie bag to eat for lunch tomorrow.
8. Take turns preparing meals and cleaning up with family members so one person doesn’t get stuck doing all of the “chores.”
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Got questions?

Contact me at: http://www.ronrink.com

My email and phone number are at that site. Feel free to contact me. I’m here to help you with your health, nutrition and fitness goals.

Have a healthy and nutritious day!

Shanti,

Ron

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This is the season of so many holidays. There is Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years right around the corner. There will be unusual quantities of food and it’s important to think ahead about how you’ll be handling all those meals.

Some of the readers here may be diabetics, and while this article is directed towards them, it also contains good advice for all of us.

We all know that it’s quite likely that we’ll over-indulge with all the big meals and parties. It’s especially important for diabetics to keep blood sugar levels in a healthy range. In fact, we should all try to eat foods that are not only delicious, but also healthy. Foods like lean proteins, fiber-rich whole grains, nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables, and foods with the good fats like fish and nuts.

Here are a few tips that we hope will help you this season:

Prepare a Dish Yourself. Adhering to the healthy eating principles whenever possible is the best way to avoid blood sugar spikes. If your holiday gathering doesn’t include the foods you can eat, consider bringing your own festive, seasonal dish for everyone to enjoy.

Since you need fresh foods made with wholesome ingredients, it isn’t hard to find or create delicious recipes. Check your cookbooks. With so many options, it’s easy to whip up a delicious, nutrient-dense dish to share with your guests or your hosts.

Drink in Moderation. Alcohol and diabetes can be a dangerous mix if you aren’t careful. Drinking on an empty stomach directly after administering insulin or shortly after taking glucose-lowering medications can lead to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), a condition that can cause confusion, dizziness, or even loss of consciousness. (These are also symptoms that happen to anyone who is drinking too much.)

Be vigilant about only drinking with food to slow the absorption of alcohol, and be sure not to exceed the American Diabetes Association’s recommended amounts of alcohol: one drink a day for women and two a day for men.

Also, people with complications stemming from diabetes, such as neuropathy (nerve damage) and high triglycerides (fats that circulate in the blood), should speak with their doctor about whether they should abstain from alcohol altogether. Finally, if you’re taking medications to control diabetes, check with your doctor or pharmacist about whether the two can be safely mixed. For those who don’t have diabetes, it is best to stay with wine, vodka, gin, whisky, scotch, bourbon, tequila, rum, or extra-dry or brut champagne. Avoid beer and other sugary drinks. Also, be sure to use sugar-free mixers, like club or diet soda.

Stress Less. For some, the frenzy of the holidays causes stress. And stress, while harmful for healthy people, is particularly bad for those with diabetes. Hormones released in response to stress may inhibit the body’s ability to produce insulin, which, in turn, causes blood sugar levels to soar. Manage your anxiety by carving out time for a relaxing activity — something as simple as flipping through a magazine or taking a walk may be enough — and prioritizing your “to do” list so you don’t take on too much at once.

Get Enough Exercise. The time constraints of the holidays can make squeezing in a workout a challenge. Still, getting regular and consistent exercise — a minimum of 30 minutes of cardio most days of the week, plus resistance training and stretching — is especially important if you have diabetes. If you’re really pressed for time, make several short bouts of activity the goal. Many people find it easier to think about squeezing in a 15-minute walk on the way to work and another one at lunchtime than to tackle 30 minutes of exercise at once — but both strategies count toward your overall goal.

Monitor Your Condition. Making healthy eating decisions is important for weight loss and maintenance, but as a diabetic it’s especially important to make healthy choices to maintain your blood sugar levels. As always, be sure to monitor your blood sugar with a blood-glucose monitor — especially before and after a big holiday meal — to ensure it’s in the optimal range.

There may not be another article until the early part of next week. UNtil then, I wish all of you a very, happy and healthy Thanksgiving.
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Got questions?

Contact me at: http://www.ronrink.com

My email and phone number are at that site. Feel free to contact me. I’m here to help you with your health, nutrition and fitness goals.

Have a healthy and nutritious day!

Shanti,

Ron

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Did you ever stop to realize that one of the leading causes of death in this country is heart disease? I’m guessing you do know that. But did you ever stop to realize that it is largely preventable?

We seem to believe that we’re indestructible. We believe that heart disease is something that’s going to happen to the other guy. Well folks, the statistics for 2006 show that over 71 million (71,000,000) of the people in this country are suffering from some form of cardiovascular disease. (This is from data put out by the American Heart Association.)

Now, realize that these 71 million people are the ones who have been to a doctor and have been diagnosed. What about the number of people who haven’t seen a doctor but who also have heart disease? Since the numbers indicate that 1 out of 3 American men and women have some form of cardiovascular disease, doesn’t it make sense that we should take some positive steps to ensure that we’re one of the two people who don’t have the problem?

The primary risk factors are:

**** Poor Diet
**** Abdominal obesity
**** High blood pressure

Here are a few steps you can take to keep your heart healthy:

1. Take charge of your eating habits.

Reduce your fat intake and carefully choose the fats you do eat. When it comes to spreads, choose those with non-hydrogenated fats instead of butter. Avoid any products with saturated and trans fats.

2. Reduce abdominal obesity.

Eating fewer calories should be the number one priority when trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy body shape. Start with small diet changes and build accordingly. You’ll be able to tell if you’re on the right track by how your clothes fit.

3. Talk to your physician about your cholesterol level.

Just go get a blood test. It only take a few minutes. Either call your doctor and make an appointment or watch for free cholesterol screenings in your neighborhood. Believe me, if your readings are too high, it will be a motivator to get you back on track.

4. If you smoke — QUIT!!! — and do it NOW!!!

Yes, I know it’s hard to do. I’ve been there — and done that! There’s nothing more to say about smoking other than if you do it, QUIT. It is estimated that smokers lose five and a half minutes of their lives with every cigarette smoked.

5. Talk to your physician about your blood sugar levels.

Our dietary habits in this country are awful. From 1994 to 2002, 54% more people got diabetes, and it is going up by 8.2% each year. Why? We eat lousy food and we don’t get off our butts and move our bodies. Diabetes can lead to progressive blindness, heart disease, kidney damage and death. Giving in to your cravings really isn’t worth your life.

6. Check your blood pressure.

Know your blood pressure and have it checked regularly to make sure your values are under control.

7. Adopt an active lifestyle.

Engage in an activity that you like to do, not just one that you think you should do. This will keep you motivated to continue your exercise program. Try walking, running, hiking, biking, tennis, golf (without a cart), gardening, etc. The list goes on and on. Watching TV isn’t on the list, by the way, unless you’re watching it while walking on a treadmill.

8. Use alcohol in moderation.

If you choose to drink alcohol, moderation is the key. Generally, moderation is considered no more than two drinks daily. Frankly, I’m no expert, but I think that’s too high. Two drinks a week is more like it. There’s a ton of sugar in those drinks.

9. Reduce mental stress.

Meditation, yoga, and other relaxation programs are just a few examples to help control stress. I use meditation and find it’s the best way for me to keep stress levels down. You can read an article that I have published about meditation at this website: http://www.jmorganmag.com/EsotericCorner.html

10. Add motivation.

Arm yourself with better and up-to-date knowledge by reading more about nutrition and weight loss. Make it a habit to visit this blog every couple of days and you’ll have plenty of information. Take all of the steps above that apply to you. Do whatever it takes to make sure you’re one of the 2 out of 3 that don’t have heart disease. Then congratulate yourself.
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Got questions?

Contact me at: http://www.ronrink.com

My email and phone number are at that site. Feel free to contact me. I’m here to help you with your health, nutrition and fitness goals.

Have a healthy and nutritious day!

Shanti,

Ron

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While doing some research for an ebook I’m working on about prostate cancer, I came across an interesting study about the effect of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids on this disease. Since my last article was about fats and we talked about the omegas, I wanted to pass this information along to you.

A new U.S. study found that altering the ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in the typical western diet may reduce the growth rate of prostate cancer tumors.

This study with mice is one of the first to show the impact of diet (in this case, more omega-3 fatty acids and fewer omega-6 fatty acids) on lowering an inflammatory response known to promote prostate cancer tumor progression. The finding could help lead to the development of new treatments, the researchers said.

The researchers, from the University of California, Los Angeles, used mice with a hormone-sensitive prostate cancer that closely resembles human prostate cancer. One group of mice was fed a diet that included 20 percent fat with a one-to-one ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. The other group of mice also received a diet with 20 percent fat, but this diet was mostly omega-6 fatty acids.

In the mice that received the balanced diet of fatty acids, tumor cell growth rates decreased by 22 percent and prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels decreased by 77 percent, compared to the mice that received the diet with mostly omega-6 fatty acids.

Omega-6 fatty acids, the predominant polyunsaturated fatty acids in the Western diet, are found in corn, safflower oils and red meats. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in cold-water fish, including salmon, tuna and sardines.

“Corn oil is the backbone of the American diet. We consume up to 20 times more omega-6 fatty acids in our diet compared to omega-3 acids,” principal investigator Dr. William Aronson, professor in the department of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a researcher at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center, said in a prepared statement.

“This study strongly suggests that eating a healthier ratio of these two types of fatty acids may make a difference in reducing prostate cancer growth, but studies need to be conducted in humans before any clinical recommendations can be made,” Aronson said.

(The findings were published Aug. 1, 2006, in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.)

I found this study to be interesting because, once again, the possibility that controlling the types of fats in our diet may have a profound effect on human health, for both men and women. Sure, prostate cancer is a male disease, but the inclusion of the omega fatty acids, particularly the omega-3s, will do wonders for the heart health of both genders.
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Got questions?

Contact me at: http://www.ronrink.com

My email and phone number are at that site. Feel free to contact me. I’m here to help you with your health, nutrition and fitness goals.

Have a healthy and nutritious day!

Shanti,

Ron

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