Wednesday, January 21, 2015

13 TIPS FOR LOSE WEIGHT AFTER HOLIDAYS


Come back from the Christmas holidays, the first thought is certainly to our weight, banquets, meetings with friends and family gatherings often affect our weight. The network is full by numerous remedies more or less valid in the name of "detox", hinting that it is necessary to detoxify after this holiday season.

In fact the term detoxify is not suitable to explain this phenomenon, our body can not "intoxicated" or at least remain intoxicated following some extra meal.If so we would be sick and this would result in the appearance of symptoms related to a disease.Feeling full or bloated has nothing to do with the intoxication or the accumulation of toxins (which our body should eliminate), but we need to lose a few extra pounds.

Body weight gain and water retention, occur frequently due to calorie meals, rich in salt or loads of sugar, so it is necessary to resort to the immediate remedies.

And here is some simple advice, specifically designed for you, that will help, easily and without sacrifices, to get fit.

  1. get up in the morning and drink a glass of water at room temperature
  2. eplaced coffee with a good green tea, and just get 2-3 cups a day
  3. consumed fruit at breakfast
  4. snack are fundamental, consumed dried fruit (4-5 almonds, walnuts 3-4)
  5. 30 minutes before dinner, drink a glass of chilled spinach
  6. 30 minutes before dinner, eat 5g of dark chocolate to 80%
  7. start your meal with a light salad sun vegetables, but I recommend the portions, which are reduced
  8. do not use the elevator
  9. walking 30 minutes a day, but that this will lead to a rise in body temperature, otherwise it will be useless for the purpose
  10. do not skip meals
  11. not ever replace a meal with salad
  12. prefer pasta to bread
  13. get in the habit of consuming a good herbal tea before going to bed


hanks to these rules, within two weeks you can be sure that you regain your line, but if this were not enough, you just have to wait for the next article.

But how to leave you without the usual recipe, today is the turn of a contour particularly suitable in this period, which will help you to your purpose, "peas and mushrooms"

Ingredients

300 gr. frozen peas
200 gr. mushrooms
1 clove garlic
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Preparation
Pour some olive oil in a pan and a clove of garlic. Sauté without letting it burn and add the peas. Cook for a couple of minutes combining little water if necessary.
Now add the mushrooms previously cleaned and cut into slices and cover the pan with a lid.
Cook everything until the peas are cooked. Season with salt and pepper and let rest a few minutes before serving
Bon Appetite!

Andrea Busalacchi

Friday, December 19, 2014

TURMERIC TO TREAT STROKE AND ALZHEIMER'S: STUDY SHOCK COMES FROM GERMANY



Nowadays it is increasingly widespread tendency to experience cuisines from countries other than ours. One of these is certainly the Indian cuisine, a cuisine that makes extensive use of spices including certainly the best known is turmeric, a herbaceous plant of yellow ocher and an intense aroma.

Turmeric, also known as saffron Indies, is a plant with oval leaves within which bloom of flowers gathered in spikes which yield the rhizomes, they finally are subjected to a process of boiling and squeezing in order to obtain a dust with strong anti-inflammatory and healing properties.
Many certainly have been the scientific discoveries of this Indian spice: help to improve the functioning of the stomach and intestines, would have strong healing properties and more importantly strong anticancer properties, but does not end here, in fact, comes from Germany an interesting study of Turmeric and brain.

In turmeric, to say the German scholars, would present a bioactive compound capable of promoting the proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells, the Tumerone.
The study conducted by researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in Jülich, has reviewed and verified the existence of a relationship between Turmerone aromatic and neutral endogenous stem cells (NSC), or the stem cells in the adult brain.
The NSC differ in the central nervous system and play an important role in the recovery of brain function. The study was conducted in vivo, the scientists injected in laboratory mice adults (ar) tumerone, noting that in these, compared to the control group (ie in rats not injected with tumerone), were extended both the subventricular area that the hippocampus, the brain these two zones, in which it is blown neurogenesis or neuronal growth.

Certainly no exception to any of us the important consequences of this study in the medical field. For if the miraculous properties of tumerone, which certainly will continue to be evaluated, found to confirm this substance would become a prime candidate to treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and stroke.
So if you experience kitchens "alternative" and foreign, until yesterday was just a quirk, now put on our plates of tasty and fragrant curry (or a mixture of spices mainly containing turmeric) becomes an excellent initiative that healthy can not miss .

In order to make the most of the beneficial properties and organoleptic characteristics of this tasty spice, here is an interesting recipe "Fagottini potato Curry" (vegan recipe):

INGREDIENTS
1 zucchini
2 carrots
2 medium potatoes
¼ leek
1 pinch of salt integral
4 coriander seeds
½ teaspoon curry
½ teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

For the pastry:
200 grams of flour or wholemeal 0
½ cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 pinch of salt until full
cold water

PREPARATION
Peel and wash the carrots and potatoes. Wash the zucchini and slice all vegetables to obtain small cubes. Cut the leek into thin strips. In a pan, pour two tablespoons of olive oil, fry the vegetables for a few minutes. Then add the spices, remembering to press between the fingers coriander seeds. Pour into the pan a glass of hot water and cook covered for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until the vegetables have softened.

Combine in a bowl the flour and oil, along with a pinch of salt. Stir and add cold water gradually. Start working the ingredients with your hands until the dough is very elastic. Forming the classic ball and let the dough rest for 15 minutes, anointing him with a little oil. Lay a sheet of rectangular and rather thin with a rolling pin.

Place in the center, the filling of vegetables that you have prepared. Fold the corners inward, toward the center of the square, one at a time, and seal the edges with your fingers. Cook the dumplings potato curry in the oven at 180 degrees for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown. Serve while still hot.

Bon Appetite!

Andrea Busalacchi

Monday, November 10, 2014

SPINACH TO CONTROL HUNGER



Eating is certainly one of the many pleasures that life has to offer, but let completely abandon such pleasure without any restraint could lead to unpleasant consequences for our health, starting with the overweight and anything that might result from this condition.

For this reason it is of primary importance to be able to keep under control the feeling of hunger, especially in particular conditions (stress, nervousness, boredom etc), strikes us.

A great help in this regard would be there in a study conducted at the University of Lund in Sweden, the protagonists of this study: the spinach. When we think of spinach, we can not bring to mind the image of Popeye that consumed boxes and boxes of these to increase his strength, but according to recent findings by Dr. Charlotte Erlanson-Albertsson more than increase the strength of the spinach help to reduce the feeling of hunger and defeat the dreaded extra pounds.

The experiment involved 38 overweight women, half of these were made to drink every morning for three months a mix of spinach, the other half a placebo instead (a concentration that did not contain spinach). The participants, however, were unaware of the type of drink they were consuming.
At the end of three months, the women who drank the concentrate made from spinach not only lost less than 5 kg compared to 3.5 in the placebo group, but they were also able to stick to three meals a day not having felt no particular desire to food, a factor that has dramatically reduced (95%) consumption of so-called junk foods.

But to what to attribute the prodigious ability of spinach? Well, the credit for this was due to the thylakoids, these substances can prolong the digestive process, this extension would allow the gut hormone to reach the brain before it warns again the feeling of hunger. The wonderful effects of the thylakoids are not attributable to a single active ingredient, but various substances such as galactolipids, protein, vitamin A, E, K, antioxidants, beta-carotene, lutein, and many others.

It is good to know that spinach give off the "miraculous" thylakoids is necessary for them to be crushed, filtered, and centrifuged prior to use. So we want to free ourselves from the often excruciating, feelings of hunger that oppresses us and hits us unexpectedly and more often than not being able to fight, we are forced to go along; Well we do like the comic book hero and consume every morning a great centrifuged spinach to easily defeat the no less dreaded feeling of hunger.

Here is a recipe for a tasty and enjoyable centrifuged to prepare a "centrifuged pineapple and spinach"

Ingredients
1 bunch of spinach
1 handful of kale leaves
2 green apples
4 mint leaves
4 or 5 slices of pineapple

Preparation
Place all ingredients washed and cut, within a centrifuge. The resulting product can be served with ice or at room temperature.

Bon Appetite!

Andrea Busalacchi

Thursday, October 23, 2014

THE THOUSAND VIRTUES OF THE POMEGRANATE AND A TASTY RISOTTO


Species native to Asia Minor, the pomegranate has very ancient origins, its entry into Europe occurred with the arrival deiFenici, thanks to their maritime routes. 

Since ancient Egypt, pomegranate juice (the fruit) was added to the beer to make it a drink of salvation, while the ancient Greeks identified the juice as the blood of Dionysus and in his honor the goddess of love Aphrodite decided to plant it on the ground. 

Even to this day is for many people a fruit with many meanings, in China for example is the female sexual organ, recalling the erotic sphere and fecundity. The fruit of the pomegranate is a fruit a little sugar (only 13% of sugars), rich in potassium, phosphorus, and vitamin C, only one specimen of about 300g would provide the daily requirement of this vitamin. But what's interesting scientific research are the antioxidants and polyphenols such as ellagic acid and punicalagina, polyphenols with strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. 

Diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, are characterized (describing it in a very simplistic) by now become chronic inflammation in the brain. This chronic condition leading to progressive loss of nerve cells, leading people suffering from these illnesses to a continuing deterioration. To date, unfortunately, there are no cures, but only information about prevention (as described several of my previous articles), but the punicalagina could be used for the prevention and slowing the progression of these diseases. 
The results from the collaboration of two universities, one English and one German, on rat brain cells gave a lot of hope; pomegranate extract could inhibit the inflammatory phenomenon. 

Of course the way the research is still long, but you're thinking about a new substance created from punicalagina for pharmaceutical purposes, but in the meantime to enjoy its beneficial properties, just assume about a fruit per day, which contains about 3.4 % of punicalagina, or take the 100% juice. 

Alternatively, it could also be added to savory recipes such as risotto with leeks and pomegranate: 

ingredients 
· Rice 400 gr 
· 200 g leeks 
· Butter 70 g 
· Extra virgin olive oil 4 tbsp 
· Vegetable broth q.b. 
· 1 glass of rose wine 
· Pomegranate 2 

preparation 
Shelling the pomegranates and start preparing risotto. Coarsely chop the leeks and cook over low fire with 50 grams of butter or olive oil; if they were too dry, add the hot broth. At end of cooking time to spend all the mixer to obtain a smooth cream. Meanwhile, toast the rice in the oil and then sprinkle with the rose wine, when the wine has evaporated, add the cream of leek soup, and continue cooking add, whenever servant, a ladle of broth and stir constantly. Switch grains of pomegranate in the mill fine mesh, leaving aside 4 tablespoons whole to garnish the risotto at the end of cooking; you get a pinkish liquid to add to the rice is half cooked. When the rice is cooked, add salt, pepper and stir in the remaining butter or possibly with parmesan reggiano or grana padano cheese, then add half of the beans in the rice kept aside and mix well; use the other half to garnish platters. 

Bon Appetite!

Andrea Busalacchi

Monday, October 6, 2014

HEALING WITH DRIED FRUIT, HERE IS A TASTY RECIPE


How many times, especially during the holidays we paused to peel and eat almond nuts, pistachio nuts and whatever else maybe just to pass the time in the company of our loved ones. 

Well this delightful pastime would also be a good initiative for our health, at least judging by the results of studies conducted at the University of Toronto, where researchers have primarily focused at identifying the existence of a relationship between consumption of nuts and our health. Health aspects examined were: the metabolic syndrome (ie, a clinical situation at high cardiovascular risk, the symptoms of which are often related to the lifestyle of the person, including overweight and sedentary lifestyle, or particular pre-existing pathological conditions related to obesity, high cholesterol, etc..) and glycemic control in diabetes. 

In this regard, I was conducted 2 meta-analysis, that is, an assessment made ​​of the various studies already carried out earlier. The first was aimed at identifying the existence of a relationship between consumption of nuts and metabolic syndrome. This analysis was performed by selecting 47 studies involving 2200 subjects, some of which are in good health, others suffering from metabolic syndrome, dyslipidemia (high levels of cholesterol or triglycerides) or type 2 diabetes. 

The results of the research were very interesting, in fact, the daily intake of about 60g of walnuts would greatly reduce the levels of fasting triglycerides, a factor that would lead to a twofold risk of cardiovascular disease and even a five times greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes. the second meta-analysis instead focused on the relationship between consumption of macadamia nuts and blood glucose levels in patients with diabete2 in this case were taken into account in 12 clinical trials, in particular by comparing the effects of different diets in a group of 450 subjects. 

Well, the diet of nuts compared with isocaloric diets, which was not included in the consumption of nuts, there would have been extremely positive since it would lower significantly the levels of fasting plasma glucose in patients with type 2 diabetes. 

The daily consumption of dried fruit and nuts would not only mean a general metabolic advantage but would also be able to significantly decrease the risk factors for metabolic syndrome and glycemic control in patients with diabetes 2 Adopt a diet that includes these foods would seem therefore an excellent initiative to improve the quality of our lives and avert the danger of a metabolic syndrome, so do not limit ourselves to eat it only on holidays but you do that it becomes a good habit daily. 

And here's a light recipe, which you can use dried fruit to complete the dish "Spaghetti with soy crisp vegetables and cashews." 

Ingredients: 
150 grams of soy noodles 
1 zucchini 
1-2 carrots 
1/2 red bell pepper 
2 medium onions 
fresh bean sprouts 
cashews 
extra virgin olive oil 
soy sauce 
ginger powder or fresh 

Preparation: 
Wash the vegetables, cut the onions thin, slice the zucchini into strips, carrot and bell pepper. Put to heat plenty of oil in a deep frying pan, when hot pour the onions, carrots and bell pepper, cook briefly over medium heat, after a minute add the zucchini, bean sprouts and cashew nuts. Add the ginger and soy sauce. Stir-fry briefly, leaving the vegetables crisp. Cook the spaghetti according to package instructions and then pour into the pan with the sauce, mix well and serve hot. 

Bon Appetite!

Andrea Busalacchi

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

SALAD WITH BROCCOLI SPROUTS, A DELICIOUS RECIPE FOR DETOXIFICATION



That the broccoli plants were absolutely beneficial for our body is now known, but its shoots had more detoxifying is the discovery of a team of researchers from the East. 

We're talking about an interesting clinical study, where people have been used to understand the effects of the daily intake of broccoli sprouts. About 300 men and women in the study, took a daily cup of a drink made from sprouts; the term of the study has noted an increase in the elimination of known air pollutants and food products, namely benzene and acrolein (while benzene is a pollutant that is found in urban air, acrolein is formed during the frying and smoking) 

These beneficial properties are attributed to a substance called sulforaphane, notes and confirmed anti-tumor properties; unfortunately this substance easily undergoes degradation as a result of the cooking, for this reason the use of broccoli sprouts for the creation of a beverage, appears to be a non-invasive method that leaves intact the characteristics of sulforaphane. 

In numerical terms, the excretion of benzene is reduced by 61%, while that of acrolein of 23% on an ongoing basis, for a period of at least 12 weeks (as assessed by the study). Unfortunately, the continuous increase of air pollutants requires that we also need to change our eating habits in order to help our body to adapt to new and ever greater metabolic stress. 

But let's see how to prepare these sprouts at home without necessarily needing the land: 
Buy the seeds of broccoli and keep them in warm water for 24 hours or 20 minutes in water and bleach (9 parts water to 1 part bleach). Rinse thoroughly and put the seeds on a colander. In a clean container to place white paper towels (paper towels), sprinkle the seeds on top of the paper and cover the container with a layer of transparent film pierced. Leave the container near a window out of direct sunlight and wait 3-5 days for collection. 
Once harvested the sprouts, rinse thoroughly to remove the cuticles. 

If you do not like a drink made of sprouts, you can prepare them by following this tasty recipe: 

Salad with broccoli sprouts: 
ingredients 
salad kind 
arugula 
1 carrot 
1 zucchini 
onion 
2 radishes 
3 brussel sprouts 
broccoli sprouts 
extra virgin olive oil 

Bon Appetite!

Andrea Busalacchi

Sunday, August 10, 2014

TIPS FOR A BARBECUE REALLY HEALTHY



The beautiful days are certainly an opportunity to be outdoors and why not enjoy a good barbecue with friends, but beware of the meat cooked so could be hazardous to our health because of some harmful substances that develop during this type of preparation. 

In particular, a study by a researcher at the University of Port Isabel Ferreira MPLVO had revealed that there is a significant correlation between the consumption of grilled meat and the development of colorectal cancer. This association was mainly due to the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that are released during the cooking of meat to extreme temperatures, just as during the cooking at the barbecue. 

But how to remove this danger and cook the meat on the grill in the healthiest way possible? 

Well the Portuguese researchers have made ​​a sensational discovery, during their study, the researchers let the pork marinate for 4 hours in three different types of beer: Pilsner alcoholic, non-alcoholic beer and dark beer Ale, finally the meat was cooked on grid fueled by coal, the results were truly amazing. 

The cooking of meat by this method would in fact possible to halve the production of eight types of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, thus reducing significantly the danger, especially dark beer was the one that showed the best results. The researchers therefore concluded that the intake of meat marinated in beer may be an appropriate mitigation strategy, and in case you do not have or has not lovers of the taste of beer, you could substitute red wine or tea. 

Finally, do not give up then, for the pleasure of a good barbecue, we follow some small tricks to make our grilled meat as healthy as possible. 

Here are some: 
- Choose lean cuts of meat, instead of varieties to high fat content such as ribs and sausage, since these dripping less thus creating less damaging fumes for our health 
- Remove the excess fat and remove the skin 
-scongelare the meat before cooking to reduce the cooking time 
-collocare the food at least 6 inches from the heat source 
-Create a barrier to prevent the leakage of juices and produce harmful smoke, for example by spreading on a sheet of aluminum with a grid of holes. 
But if the meat is not covered in your favorite dishes, here is a variant very dear to me, or the "grilled pizza" 

Ingredients:

Pizza dough 
Pepperoni 
eggplant 
Mozzarella di bufala 
Olive white 
Celery 
Chili pepper 
Extra virgin olive oil 

Preparation 
Roasting a pepper on the grill; cooked cleaned and cut into strips. Grilling an aubergine slices. Spread the pizza dough and create an oval of about half of the thickness / an inch. Prepare the grill by putting the charcoal in only one half. Place the dough seasoned, on the side of the direct heat. Freshly cooked  turn from side still have over half the barbecue without charcoal. Finish the cooking. Sprinkle the pizza directly on the grill starting with the tomato sauce and add the remaining ingredients. Close the lid and wait for the end of cooking. Garnish with extra virgin olive oil 

Bon Appetite!

Andrea Busalacchi