Tag Archives: Garlic

4 Proven Herbs for Reducing Cholesterol Naturally » Natural News Blogs

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4 Proven Herbs for Reducing Cholesterol Naturally

The importance of lowering your cholesterol levels

As all of us known, heart disease is the NO.1 killer of men and women in the United States, one out of every two men and one out of every three women will get heart disease sometime in their life. Studies have shown that lowering cholesterol can reduce the risk of having a heart attack, so no matter for people with heart disease or without heart disease, it is critical for all adults to have their cholesterol levels tested.

How Can You Lower Your Cholesterol Levels

Your cholesterol level is influenced by several factors, including age, weight, foods you eat, stress, physical activity. People can reduce the cholesterol level by maintaining a healthy lifestyle: keep a healthy weight, eat foods with low saturated fat as well as low trans-fats, do exercise regularly, avoid alcohol, stop smoking and drug treatment.

How Can You Lower Your Cholesterol Levels Simply By Natural Herbs

There are some natural herbs you can include in your diet for managing, reducing and improving your cholesterol levels:

  • Alfalfa Herb

Studies have shown that alfalfa seeds may help people maintain a healthy cholesterol level by reducing the harmful types of cholesterol(LDL) in the blood while the good kind of cholesterol (HDL) seems to be unaffected. The fibers and chemicals in alfalfa seem to stick to cholesterol, keeping it from staying in the blood.

Besides, alfalfa is packed with vitamins, folic acid, magnesium, potassium, iron and other types of minerals which are all essential for the proper functioning of the various organs in the body. While taking alfalfa in moderation (80-120 grams daily is recommended) as it may cause damage to red blood cells in the body.

  • Garlic

Since ancient times, garlic has been used for treating several types of diseases, and studies have shown that garlic can help to keep the cholesterol levels in good balance by reducing the serum cholesterol levels while increasing the “good” HDL-cholesterol levels.

And garlic can lower your cholesterol levels without any side effects as other drug treatments, in addition to reducing blood pressure, protecting against infections and preventing blood clots. So if you want to keep a positive cholesterol levels, try to add this super herb to your meals.

  • Policosanol

As a herb obtained from sugar cane, policosanol has been shown to be effective in reducing cholesterol levels in the body by breaking down the LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) and it does not increase the blood sugar too. Researches have found that policosanol is particularly beneficial for postmenopausal women with high cholesterol levels.

5-10mg per day of this supplement is suggested by experts for lowering your cholesterol levels and should not take more than 20mg in one day.

  • Green Tea

Green tea is a wonderful antioxidant and has been shown to prevent the absorption of cholesterol in the digestive tract, making it a good tool for reducing the cholesterol levels.

A research published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who drink green tea for some months, have around 2% lower of the “bad” cholesterol levels than those who didn’t have green tea, and at the same time, the “good” cholesterol was not being affected.

Other Healthy Habits to Reduce Your Cholesterol Levels

Cholesterol is something that you can control by using some of the herbal treatments as well as other healthy lifestyle habits too:

– Try to limit the high cholesterol foods

– Make sure to eat enough healthy vegetables and fruits every day, as the fiber they providing may help to lower the risk of heart disease

– Limit foods which are naturally high in fat

– Adopt some form of exercise

– Keep your cholesterol levels tested sometimes every year, for managing and controlling it in a good manne

More from Alex Jordon:

20 Easy Home Remedies to Cure Indigestion[1]

Top 6 Health Benefits of Eating Kale[2]

4 key and natural ways to maintain your blood pressure[3]

As antibiotics continue to fail, use garlic instead to kill MRSA and superbugs

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Garlic has been used as an antibiotic, antiviral and antifungal for centuries. But most probably consider it a lightweight, outdated folk medicine against serious bacterial infections. Antibiotics gave modern allopathic pharmaceuticals an illusion of legitimacy from 1928, when penicillin was discovered, until today.

So the mindset became why bother with that nasty tasting foul smelling garlic stuff when you could pop some antibiotic pills or be injected with the latest new miracle drug that seemed to work well without much fuss.

But there has been much fuss

The first fuss was how antibiotics didn’t distinguish between good and bad bacteria. Synthetic pharmaceuticals are equal opportunity killers.

So much of the intestinal flora, containing billions of beneficial bacteria for digestion, protection, vitamin production and total body immunity signaling, were neutralized along with the infectious bacteria.

During and after a round or two of antibiotics, supplementing with probiotics became a ritual among those who knew about synthetic antibiotics’ dangers.

Fluoroquinolone-based synthetic antibiotics also create neuropathy. Sometimes neuropathy would manifest as mild nerve problems and insomnia, but too often very painful and crippling long term side effects occurred, leaving victims without hope.

Major fluoroquinolone antibiotics are Cipro, Leviquin, Avelox, and Floxen (http://www.naturalnews.com/032337_quinolone_antibiotics_dangers.html).

The final blow is the superbug scare. The most common superbug is Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Due to extreme overuse of antibiotics over decades, 70% of which is used for livestock, bacteria learned how to defeat essentially simple chemical compound antibiotics by gene swapping among them.

MRSA started out in hospitals and nursing homes, but soon spread into community contagion. MRSA likes to infect nostrils and skin. There are several carriers of MRSA whose immune systems prevent their becoming infected. But carriers can spread what they’re carrying. If MRSA gets into the blood, it can be fatal.

At first the antibiotic vancomycin was about only the super hero antibiotic that could stop MRSA. But now, those clever little MRSA critters have developed a strain, CC5, which is able to dupe and get around even vancomycin (http://www.naturalnews.com/036031_MRSA_antibiotics_infections.html).

Time to get back to garlic

Garlic allicin extracts have recently been used successfully on MRSA victims. Allicin is the main active compound in garlic. It is released upon crushing or chewing raw garlic, but unfortunately it oxidizes rapidly and much of its bacteria killing ability is lost.

Garlic antibiotic solutions: Be unafraid and chew raw garlic directly or quickly after crushed if using as an antibiotic; or simply use a supplement or cream (for external MRSA sores) that contains allicin in a preserved state. These are available and recommended for serious bacterial issues.

Results obtained in the UK using allicin supplement creams took slightly longer than what synthetic antibiotics used to do, but were very effective. Garlic contains other sulfur compounds that bolster the immune system. Big Pharma products either dampen or overexcite the immune system. Overexciting the immune system results in cytokine storms that often cripple or damage with various neurological autoimmune diseases.

Since allicin and garlic’s other compounds are more complex than synthetic antibiotics, bacteria strains becoming resistant to garlic or allicin is unlikely. The complexity is too much for infectious bacteria to handle, and garlic overuse in livestock is also unlikely.

Another issue resolved by using garlic-based concentrated allicin is nerve damage from fluoroquinolones. There are no known side effects, other than the occasional mild allergic reaction, from garlic.

Allicin leaves friendly gut flora bacteria alone. So garlic’s allicin offers an effective solution away from Big Pharma antibiotic’s side effect issues, while offering other health benefits (http://www.naturalnews.com/029701_garlic_superfood.html).

KS

Super Healthy Food Combinations | Healthy and Natural World

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Healthy and Natural World

super healthy food combinations

Combination of avocado and tomato enhances the absorption of lycopene, the healthy component in a tomato. When you eat spinach, you’d better combine it with a piece of orange to improve iron absorption. This article will overview the winning healthy food combinations that help the body fight cancer, reduce cholesterol and prevent heart attacks. If you are looking for a winning formula to improve your quality of life, then use less medication and take advantage of what nature gives us. And here we come to an important concept: winning healthy food combinations. Each food individually has health benefits of its own, but when paired with another food item, you get a real winning match. Which food combinations should we make in our menu?

Super healthy food combinations:

Tomato and avocado or broccoli

The combination of tomato and avocado, for example in guacamole, allows the tomato lycopene to be better absorbed in the presence of the fat in avocados. Lycopene is used as an antioxidant and an essential material to prevent heart disease and blood vessels problems. In addition, the lycopene reduces the risk factors for cancer. Similarly, lycopene in tomato sauce is absorbed better if there is olive oil than if it’s oil-free dressing. If you don’t like olive oil, prepare a tomato salad with nuts and seeds that are high in quality fat. Recently it became clear that combining tomatoes and broccoli helps prevent thyroid tumors and reduce their size. This mechanism has not yet fully explained in terms of research, but this delicious combination improves coping with cancer cells.

Apple and chocolate

Surprising winning combination is a red apple and chocolate. Apples contain powerful anti-inflammatory substance called quercetin, especially in the skin and the parts close to it. This ingredient fights against allergic reaction, heart problems, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, prostate cancer and lung cancer. Chocolate, as well as black grapes, berries and red wine, is rich in antioxidant called catechin that significantly reduces risk factors for atherosclerosis and cancer. Combining these foods reduces the adherence of blood platelets, enhances the activity of the cardiovascular system and prevents blood clotting disorders.Quercetin is also found in buckwheat, onions and berries, so you can build interesting food combinations such as sangria with sliced apples, bake of buckwheat filled with berries and more.

Fish and garlic or soy

Who has not combined together fish and garlic in one recipe or another? the recommendation to combine fish and fresh or cooked garlic is not mainly for taste reasons: this combination enhances the body’s ability to utilize anti-inflammatory components, reduce cholesterol levels in fish and utilize the essential fatty acid omega 3. The cholesterol-lowering effect is more powerful when eating these two foods together. Because fish are rich in vitamin D, another recommended food combination is salmon or tuna with soybean (Edamame) or other soy products. Soy is rich in flavonoid that increases the availability of vitamin D in the tissues. It is important to know that fish is in itself a perfect synergy between minerals such as zinc, iron, copper, iodine and selenium, that work together as a powerful anti-inflammatory component.

Berries and grapes

Various berries such as blueberries, cranberries, currants and raspberries, combined with black grapes and a little bit of goji berry create dish that allows our body to utilize the most of the antioxidant action of these fruits, and to give us tremendous energy.

Spinach and citrus fruits

The combination of vitamin C and iron is known to improve the absorption of iron in the cells. Therefore, it is recommended to combine foods rich in this vitamin, such as leafy greens, citrus fruits, tomatoes, strawberries, red pepper, melon and broccoli, with a plant-based foods rich in iron, such as spinach, kale, green beans, leeks and chard.

Green salad and lemon

When preparing a green salad it’s worth remembering to spice it with a little lemon and allow our immune system and our muscles get stronger.

Grilled meat and rosemary

Roasting meat on fire exposes us to many dangerous substances and carcinogens. To reduce this exposure it’s better to roast the meat with rosemary sprigs. Rosemary contains antioxidants that reduce the amount of hazardous substances at high temperature by absorbing free radicals of the meat.

Vitamin combinations

It’s been known that a combination of vitamin D with calcium reduces the risk of colon cancer, preserves bone mass and relieves distressing symptoms such as PMS. This combination also improves the ability to reduce weight. Another familiar combination is of foods rich in vitamins that are fat soluble such as vitamin A (carrots, broccoli, peas), vitamin D (fish, milk, yogurt) or vitamin E (sweet potatoes, spinach, fish), and quality fat found for example in olive oil or almonds. This combination allows the vitamins to be absorbed effectively in our body. So try from now on to eat yogurt plus almonds or nuts …

Even a bowl of oatmeal and a glass full of fresh juice is recommended, and can be further upgraded with slices of orange or kiwifruit. The combination of oatmeal and vitamin C (orange juice or lemonade, kiwi, cantaloupe melon, strawberries, tomatoes or red peppers) reduces the values ​​of LDL (bad cholesterol), cleanse the blood vessels and helps prevent heart attacks, compared with consumption of each of the components separately.

In conclusion, it is important to understand that combining certain foods may contribute more to our health and reduce damage caused by consumption of other foods. These winning combinations can fill us with energy and improve our mood and well-being.

Sesame Quinoa Spring Rolls – TheHealthyheavenbolg.com

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Sesame Quinoa Spring Rolls

When I was looking for some new quinoa recipes to try, I came upon a recipe for Sesame Quinoa Spring Rolls from Cami whose blog is called como. come. cami. What I loved is that the recipe is so easy with very little cooking involved. Plus for those of us who are dealing with summer heat, this dish would be a light and refreshing starter to a meal, if not a meal itself. Be sure to click here to see the original recipe and while you’re there be sure to check out Cami’s other vegetarian recipes, which you can read in both English and Spanish.

Sesame Quinoa Spring Rolls
(makes 10 pieces)

Ingredients

2 cups red quinoa

3 cups water

4 handfuls of greens

10 rice paper wrappers

Dressing:

4 Tbs. rice vinegar

5 Tbs. soy sauce

2 tsp. minced garlic

2 Tbs. minced ginger

4 tsp. sesame oil

Rinse and drain the quinoa and cook for 12 minutes in 3 cups of water. While quinoa cooks, make the dressing, cut up the greens and whisk the greens and dressing together in a bowl. Once quinoa is done, combine it with the dressed greens.

Before assembling the spring rolls, fill a square pan with water. Then soak a wrapper for 30 seconds or until it begins to soften. Don’t let it sit for too long because it will soften and fall apart. Place the wet rice wrapper on a flat surface and with a spoon fill the wrapper with about 3 Tbs. of the lettuce-quinoa mixture. Fold the edges over and roll into a spring roll. Repeat by soaking another rice wrapper and wrapping it. Keep going until all the filling has been used.

Making Your Own Kimchi – Recipe | Herbivoracious – Vegetarian Recipe Blog – Easy Vegetarian Recipes, Vegetarian Cookbook, Kosher Recipes, Meatless Recipes

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Make Your Own Kimchi

Homemade Kimchi
Homemade Vegetarian Won Bok Kimchi

I‘ve resisted making my own fermented foods for, well, decades at this point. I’m not sure exactly why – maybe a little fear that they might not be safe, or that the smell would be overpowering, or just a lack of patience to wait for them to mature. But lately I’ve fallen more and more in love with fermented vegetables in particular, and I finally took the plunge with this kimchi. One of my coworkers at ChefSteps, development chef Nick Gavin, was psyched to work on it too, so we made a rather enormous 10-liter batch last week and it is happily fermenting away in the back of our office space. Yes, I’m tasting it every day.

Let me just say this: making kimchi really is very easy, not at all scary, and the results are quite delicious so far. Although I started with a rather traditional Napa cabbage kimchi (won bok kimchi), I’ve got a long list of experiments in mind. Preserved lemon / kimchi hybrid. Smoked kimchi. Red radish kimchi. Fermented harissa. Fermented ketchup. Etc, etc.

Nick and I came up with our recipe for this first batch by watching a bunch of videos and reading recipes all over the web, and then combining what seemed to us like the best ideas, ratios, and methods. Obviously one batch doesn’t make me an expert, so you’ll definitely want to experiment and adjust as well, and the book that has become more or less the bible on the subject is The Art of Fermentation. Sandor Katz’s book is full of useful information about safety, equipment and styles of fermentation (but a little light on actionable recipes).

Most (but not all) kimchi that you find at a store will have some kind of seafood product in it – anchovy sauce, fish sauce, dried shrimp and so forth. The purpose of these ingredients is to add umami (savoriness) to complement the lactic fermented tang, salt, and spicy heat. In the recipe below, we’ve just omitted them. The only source of umami is a small amount of soy sauce. I’ve done a few tests mixing either MSG or yeast extracts into some of the already partially fermented kimchi and they tasted quite good. I’ll probably put them right in the spice mixture next time – if you want to experiment, try them at about 0.5% of the total weight. (If the mention of MSG has sent you into a tizzy, you should go read the Wikipedia article for references on its safety.) Kombu and dried shiitake mushrooms also have lots of free glutamates, so I want to try them in the future as well.

Once you’ve got some kimchi (homemade or bought), here are some of my favorite dishes to serve it in or with: Kimchi fried rice, Tofu and Kimchi Dinner for One, Bibim Naengmyeon, and the kimchi jigae (kimchi stew) in my book.

  • 700 grams (1 medium head) napa cabbage
  • 1000 grams (1 liter, 4 1/4 cups) water
  • 150 grams (1 cup Diamond Crystal, 1/2 cup or so of Morton’s) kosher salt
  • 28 grams (6 cloves) fresh garlic
  • 15 grams (1″ piece) fresh ginger, peeled
  • 15 grams (1 tablespoon) sugar
  • 15 grams (1 tablespoon) soy sauce (gluten-free if you want the kimchi to be gluten-free)
  • 100 grams onion (1/3 of an onion), roughly chopped
  • 40 grams (6 tablespoons) coarse Korean chili powder (gochugaru)
  • 15 grams (2 tablespoon) rice flour
  • 130 grams (1/2 cup) water
  • 40 grams green onion (2 green onions), cut into 3″ lengths
  • 110 grams (1 medium carrot) julienned carrots
  1. Remove any discolored leaves from the cabbage and cut into 4 lengthwise sections. Remove the tough core at the bottom. Cut leaves into about 3″ sections. Whisk together the 1 liter of water and 150 grams of salt in a large, very clean container. Add the cabbage, which should be fully covered by the brine. (You might not need all of the brine). Cover with plastic wrap and find a way to apply some weight to press on the cabbage. Leave for about 1 hour until the cabbage is tender and well-seasoned.
  2. Meanwhile, combine the garlic, ginger, sugar, soy sauce and onion and puree in a mini-food processor or with an immersion blender. (If you are doing a larger batch, you can use a blender.) Transfer to a bowl and stir in the gochugaru.
  3. Whisk together the rice flour and 130 grams of water in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring frequently. As soon as it thickens, remove from heat, cool, then stir into the spice mixture. Add the green onion and carrots and toss to coat. I find this easiest to do wearing rubber gloves.
  4. Thoroughly drain the cabbage, removing as much excess brine as possible. Again using rubber gloves, toss the cabbage with the spice mixture, thoroughly coating it.
  5. Place the cabbage in a very clean container, packing it down tightly. Cover, but allow a little airflow. (Nick rigged up an airlock on a cambro, pretty fancy!). Don’t put on a tight lid or it will get blown off by CO2. Store in a cool, dark place. Taste and toss daily. Depending on temperature, it will start to develop a pleasing acidity. When it is ripe to your taste (which could be anywhere from 3 days up to a couple of weeks), transfer to clean jars and refrigerate to maximize its life.

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