HIGH FAT FOODS, NO CHOLESTROL! THE MAASAI COMMUNITY SECRET

Every day in today’s hospitals is a day to treat heart disease, high blood pressure, high weight issues, and clogged arteries all due to high cholesterol diets that people have resulted to.

However, this is not the case for the masaai people that eat highly unhealthy foods that consist of milk, meat and blood almost on a daily basis! They exhibit no signs of cholesterol or lifestyle diseases that translate to heart issues and diseases.

So do you want to know their secret?

Being pastoralists, like most of the people their worst problem is diseases and poor nutrition and high child mortality not to mention sanitation issues. They are however free from lifestyle diseases which every person can actually emulate!

1 1.Physical exercise that is the wonder drug

Life is good to enjoy but without physical action there is definitely loss of health. The masaai though enjoy milk and meat but they still have to walk into the forest to look for firewood and other feeding material for their animals! They go around fetching water and utilizing the meat and milk they take to prevent heart diseases! So while we wonder why they have such nice postures as to keep one leg lifted from the ground for such long hours we should remember the technology we like to have to ensure convenience in our lives.

2. Cosmetic resolution

Today we have had to hear about the best lose weight options that range from the gym to other parlors that claim to help a person lose weight in matters of hours! The bottom line is you need to practice the following:

• Unglue the bum out of your comfortable seat and do some exercise.
• Take stairs to 10^th floor instead of using a lift.
• Instead of going shopping by a car, just walk or cycle.
• Limit the time spent on the coach watching TV, instead, either engage in trimming the fence, cutting grass or playing with kids.
• Banish the customary mentality of mature men and women are not supposed to be seen running. Take a few runs around the estate every day, either in the morning or evening.
• Visit your relative on foot if they live nearby. Walk to church etc.
• Finally, as a last option, join the gym not as a show of how loaded you are, by as a means to physical fitness for the sake of health.

3. The miraculous herb

I know you must have been wondering what makes them so healthy after all! Well, the masaai have a certain herb they always enjoy from barks and leaves in addition to the milk and meat they eat. The plant has chemicals that are an important part in preventing their heart diseases. This herb is called the olkinyei or the jacket plum. This plant significantly lowers cholesterol since it has polyphenols, phytosteroids and other water soluble fibers, antioxidants, flavanoids, all of which beat cholesterol taken in significantly!

So is this herb available in the market?

 Find out in the next post on this page!

Email me on ndutaniceness@gmail.com

The TRUTH ABOUT STEVIA, THE SUBSTITUTE FOR SUGAR

Today everyone wants to stay healthy and anything in the market that shouts that health literally earns the confidence of people in the Kenyan market. Diabetes has been on the rise today and the use of STEVIA leaves been up to substitute the white or brown sugar that is commonly used. So many do not understand the effects of using stevia both the good and the bad...

Famously, Stevia is a plant that is native to South America. It is probably best known as a source of natural sweeteners. In fact, native people in South America have used stevia as a sweetener for hundreds of years. But the leaves are also used to make medicine.
NEMA agreed to the growth of these leaves in Kenya after realizing their medicinal effect aside from the sweetening ability.

Normally, Stevia is used as a weight loss aid; for treating diabetes, high blood pressure and heartburn; for lowering uric acid levels; for preventing pregnancy; and for increasing the strength of the muscle contractions that pump blood from the heart.

THE GOOD
Growing stevia in Kenya is a good backyard gardening activity for every household. This is a perfect way to reduce the household budget of sugar, as the sweetener is 30 times sweeter than sugar. Stevia herbal sugar offers sweetness minus the unhealthy effects and the sweetener is calorie free. The leaves can be used directly in tea fresh or dried. The natural leaves can also be cooked and eaten as vegetables. Stevia herbal sweetener is said to be good for all people including diabetics.

Stevia also serves as a natural, calorie-free sugar substitute and can be found as an ingredient in a variety of processed foods. Unlike dietary sugars, the sweetening agents in stevia do not increase your blood glucose levels after you consume them and can therefore help your blood sugar remain steady, nor do they contribute to dental cavities the way table sugar does. Finally, stevia holds an advantage over aspartame, an artificial sweetener containing the amino acid phenylalanine, for those with phenylketonuria. Phenylketonurics cannot process phenylalanine and must therefore avoid it. Because stevia doesn’t contain phenylalanine, it is a safer alternative to aspartame. But all these benefits are only available if used when raw... If you use it when processed the bad is bound to occur:

THE BAD
At high doses, stevia compounds can cause mutagenesis, or damage to your genes, and they also can lead to temporary gastrointestinal upset, muscle pain and weakness. Stevia can also interact with medications and affect their potency. For example, it can increase the effects of both blood-lowering and anti-diabetic drugs, requiring careful monitoring by your healthcare provider. In addition, until more thorough safety assessments have been completed, pregnant women should avoid stevia.In some people, stevia can cause nausea, bloating or gas.

You must be wondering how come you have not probably heard of it.. This package above can be found in Nakumatt or Tuskys today and is easy to grow on your backyard. In fact,  Stevia herbal sweetener is harvested 3 months after planting, after which the crop is dried and ground into powder for use as a sweetener. Alternatively juice can be extracted and used in a similar way. 

It is the best invention and departure from sugar but requires caution for the best use possible. For more email me on ndutaniceness@gmail.com

THE TRUTH ABOUT ALCOHOL AND BEER BELLIES

So in my line of consultancy, I have come across various people asking me what about beer? what about a little wine? and what if I am just the occasional drinker.
I will first clarify that morally, I do not advocate for any amount of ingestion of alcohol. But then again choices in life are sometimes self made and thus I speak for all when I stipulate the nutritional truth about alcohol.

In the first Place,
Alcohol, also known as ethanol, is made through a process called fermentation. During fermentation, yeast breaks sugar down into ethanol and carbon dioxide. This process is done without any air present, and once complete, the carbon dioxide gas bubbles out into the air, leaving ethanol and water behind. Distilled spirits, such as vodka, rum, gin, and whiskey, are fermented and then distilled to separate the ethanol from the water.
Various sources of sugar are used in these processes, resulting in different forms of alcohol. The sugar from crushed grapes is used to make wine; malted barley is used to make beer; sugar cane or molasses makes rum; grain, potatoes, beets, molasses, and a variety of other plants are used to make vodka.
The technique used to make the beverage will determine the alcohol content. You will see the percentage of alcohol per volume listed on the bottle, as well as the proof of the drink. The proof of a beverage is twice the alcohol content, so a drink with 12% alcohol per volume is 24 proof. Generally, a 12-ounce glass of beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine, and a 1.5-ounce shot of liquor all contain a ½ ounce of pure alcohol and are considered one drink.

Yes, as a nutritionist I am aware of the various types of alcohol in the market, as it is the truth about all of them is that they improve metabollic/digestion rate but provide empty calories to your body!!

 There is a popular belief that pot bellies in men are caused by drinking beer. This is why pot belly is referred to as ‘beer belly’. However, lets evaluate the facts, there are people who do not drink but develop pot belly. At the same time, there are people who are daily drinkers yet are extremely skinny. Therefore we should not generalise beer as a bad evil that impregnates men.

Today I will tackle the beer belly in men:

There are several reasons why beer is blamed for pot bellies in men.

1. The first reason is that beer is high in calories. 1 gram of alcohol contains approximately 7 Calories. This is the second highest number of calories compared to other macronutrients in food. 1 gram of fat contains 9 Calories, 1 gram of carbohydrates contains 4 Calories and 1 gram of protein contains 4 Calories. Calories in beer are referred to as empty calories. This implies that most of these calories end up converted into fat.

A 500 ml beer (approximately 1 pint) which is 5 % v/v alcohol contains approximately 170 Calories. This means that consuming 5 beer bottles of 500 ml gives a total of 850 Calories. These are only derived from beer. When you add the calories from the other foods then you exceed the daily recommended calorie intake.

2. Beer consumption leads to hunger, this can cause a person to eat additional unhealthy foods which are also high in calories such as barbecue meat (commonly referred to as choma), sausages and other fatty foods. Actually, many beer drinkers say that fatty foods reduces the level of drunkenness.

3. Beer also leads to dropping of blood sugars level. This leads to lethargy. Lethargy leads to reduced activity which implies that less calories are burned. The burning of less  calories increases the likely hood of accumulation of fat and hence pot belly.

Men with ‘beer belly’ are at high risk of many healthy problems. These include:

• Stroke
• Some types of cancer
• Abnormal lipids
• Insulin resistance
• High triglycerides
• Low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or “good,” cholesterol
• Metabolic syndrome
• Type 2 diabetes
• Sleep apnea
• Heart disease

I love questions. Why not leave them in comments section.