How to Turn Your Kitchen Gadgets Into Wellness Wonders

Your kitchen gadgets aren’t just helping for adding a little finesse to your food, or making cooking more convenient; they’re excellent complementary wellness tools. Whether it’s your fancy slow cooker, or the lowly frying pan, take care of your wellbeing with these six wellness wonders:

 

1. Fatigue-Fighting Frying Pan

Not only can a black cast-iron skillet or pot do everything that the metal varieties can, they can help to prevent iron-deficiency anaemia and fatigue. Cooking in cast iron cookware enables the food to safely absorb iron, especially if you’re cooking acidic foods like tomatoes, and this helps to get more iron into your diet. As anaemia can affect your wellness with fatigue, pale skin, headaches, muscle weakness and dizziness, your frying pan can be a real help. Just remember to use heavy, black cast-iron rather than the enamel-coated type, as this won’t give you the iron boost you need.

 

2. Malady-Preventing Microwave Popcorn

Instead of choosing your regular, chemical-laden bags of microwaveable popcorn (with added oil), pop some plain popcorn kernels into a paper bag, fold the top over a few times, and microwave until the kernels pop. Why? As popcorn contains more concentrated polyphenols than fruits or vegetables, it’s surprisingly high in antioxidants, which helps to keep inflammation at bay. As a result, this could prevent almost any major disease, including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and depression, and making popcorn in a paper bag minus the added oil saves on calories and added fat.

 

3. Bulge-Beating Hand Blender

An immersion hand blender, unlike some hand mixers, doesn’t chop; it quickly blends or purees. This means you can whip up a wholesome, delicious soup and, as an added bonus, lose weight in the process. According to a 2007 Consumer Reports survey of popular diets, having a soupy starter helps to fill you up a bit before a meal, meaning that you eat less and lose more weight. Another 2007 study noted that having soup before lunch – thanks to your handy hand blender – can reduce your post-lunch calorie consumption by 20%.

 

4. Oxidant-Obliterating Oil Mister

Using an oil mister or sprayer helps you to evenly coat your pan or food with healthy oils, and even add herbs or flavourings more easily. Oils that contain healthy fats, such as extra-virgin olive oil, coconut oil, or grape-seed oil, promote the production of antioxidant hormones in your body which fight damage of stress to your cells, and anti-inflammatory hormones which help you to heal after injury or infection. Plus, these fats are essential for your body’s metabolism, overall functioning, and even your diet plan.

 

5. Cholesterol-Cutting Slow Cooker

Not only do slow cookers make cooking dinner more convenient, they also allow flavours the time to mingle and intensify, making for a more delicious meal. While this is great for stews and the like, you can use your slow cooker to create one of the most nutritious breakfasts out there; oatmeal. All you need to do is throw some steel-cut oats, water, cinnamon, and dried fruit (preferably chopped dates or figs, currants, dried cranberries, dried blueberries) into the cooker before bed, and leave it on low for at least seven hours. Then you simply add low-fat milk, yogurt, or vanilla to taste in the morning. The reason you want steel-cut oats is that these are the least processed type of oatmeal, chopped into the largest pieces, so they take longest to digest. Plus, a 2008 scientific review found that oat consumption lowers your levels of low-density lipoprotein, or “bad cholesterol”, which reduces your risk of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and weight gain.

Categories: added oil, anaemia, black cast, cast iron, cholesterol, frying pan, hand blender, kitchen gadgets, oil mister, paper bag, Weight Loss, wellness wonders

What Are The Symptoms Of Vitamin B12 Deficiency?

The main cause of anaemia is a lack of vitamin B12 in your blood – pernicious anaemia is a condition where the body can’t absorb vitamin B12, which leads to a deficiency. This is the most common cause of vitamin B12 in the UK which is easily treated with regular injections of the vitamin. Blood is made up of a combination of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and proteins. The red blood cells are made in the bone marrow, of which millions are released every day into the bloodstream. The body needs a constant supply of red blood cells every day in order to replace those which have broken down. These contain a chemical known as haemoglobin, which binds to oxygen to transport it from the lungs to elsewhere in the body. In order to make this effectively within the body, you need to have healthy bone marrow, as well as nutrients such as iron and certain vitamins, including vitamin B12. If you’re suffering with anaemia, you will either have fewer red blood cells than normal, or you will have less haemoglobin in each red blood cell than normal. Whichever form you have, this will result in less oxygen being carried around the bloodstream – this can be caused by a number of things, from a lack of iron to a deficiency in certain vitamins. Many people don’t realise just how important vitamin B12 is, but experts agree that it is essential for life. Without it, the body can’t make as many new red blood cells which means your health will suffer. Vitamin B12 is found in milk, eggs, meat and fish, but not in fruit or vegetables. This is why many vegetarians or vegans suffer with anaemia and need to ensure that they get their source of vitamin B12 from other sources, such as supplements.

 

The symptoms to look out for which may highlight whether you have anaemia are tiredness, lethargy, feeling faint or becoming breathless. Though rarer symptoms, some people notice headaches, palpitations, altered taste, a loss of appetite, or tinnitus which is a ringing in the ears. You may also look pale, due to a lack of red blood cells in your bloodstream. Because vitamin B12 is so vital for your body’s health, you may find that other cells in the body are affected by anaemia – for example, some other symptoms include a sore mouth and tongue. If the problem is left untreated, you may also find that there are problems with your nerves, such as numbness, vision problems, unsteadiness, confusion, or pins and needles. Usually when you eat foods which contain vitamin B12, the vitamin binds with a protein called intrinsic factor in the stomach. The combined nutrient is then absorbed by the body further down in the gut, at the end of the small intestine. Intrinsic factor is made by the cells in the lining of the stomach and is vital in order for vitamin B12 to be absorbed.

 

Pernicious anaemia is an autoimmune disease and leads to the antibodies attacking the intrinsic factor in the stomach, which stops it attaching to the vitamin B12. Researchers are unsure why the body triggers this attack. This form of anaemia is generally diagnosed in people over the age of 50, and occurs more commonly in women than men. People who have other autoimmune diseases, such as thyroid or Addison’s disease, are more likely to develop pernicious anaemia. There are even stomach problems which can cause vitamin B12 deficiency. Though they’re uncommon, they include surgery to remove the stomach or end of the small intestine which means that vitamin B12 isn’t possible; some diseases which affect the stomach, such as Crohn’s disease; some conditions in the stomach may also affect the production of intrinsic factor, such as atrophic gastritis which causes the lining of the stomach to thin.

Categories: anaemia, stomach problems, vitamin B12

Give Yourself 2 Years Before Having Another Baby

In an interview in Abujah, gynaecologist Dr. Fred Achem informed women of child-bearing age to give themselves a two-year pause before having another child.

This is due to the low blood levels that occur during childbirth, which are irregular and unstable, leading to effects such as anaemia, heart failure, fatigue, leg swelling and more. Following a heavy loss of blood, women need a long period of time to recover – more than you may think. Further still, another pregnancy so soon encourages the risk of miscarriage.

According to Codewit, during the interview, Dr. Achem said, “Our women must not continue to get pregnant every year. They have to recover from one pregnancy, rebuild their blood system up and that takes a minimum of two years. Once the blood level starts coming down, it manifests in her strength to carry the baby, it manifests in the size of the baby. And if the anaemia is very deficient, the baby may even succumb in her womb as a result of anaemia.”

One of the methods of avoiding anaemia is for expecting mothers (and those of child-bearing age in general) to take doses of iron and folic acid tablets, which then builds up the blood system. Nutrition is also a giant leap into healthy pregnancy by moderating weight and calorie intake.

“It is very important that women consider their own nutrition and stay on top of good nutrition all through pregnancies, moderate weight gain is very important.”

“It is not so much of what they eat but the quality of what they eat, and to address such things, it is better to avoid all those fried fruits which bring more calories to the system.”

Gynaecologists suggest a heavy mixture of good protein and vegetables to stave off anaemia and the awkward jostle of bowel movements.

Give Yourself 2 Years Before Having Another Baby

Categories: anaemia, childbirth, Fatigue, gynaecology, heart failure, pregnancy, Pregnant, swollen legs