Stomach Acid

Today I am going to talk about stomach acid, HCl or gastric juice. Whatever you want to call it!

As for me, I will stick with stomach acid. This liquid inside of our stomachs is very important as it helps to digest foods, and help with absorption of certain vitamins such as B12. It performs multiple of functions!

However, as it is very important to have it INSIDE of your stomach, it is equally important NOT to have it OUTSIDE of your stomach!

Have you ever experienced that burning sensation after eating when suddenly foods that you ate bounce back into your throat and mouth? Well, that’s stomach acid to you!

Somewhere between our stomach and our throat we have special “gates” which prevent the reflux of the stomach acid back into the throat. However, when those “gate” get damaged, the burning sensation from regurgitation can occur.

You are probably wondering: “what can I possibly do to damage those gates?!” The answer is simple! TOO MUCH of certain foods can cause that damage: too much chocolate, spicy foods, fatty foods, caffeine and acidic foods. Also ALCOHOL and SMOKING damage your “gates” and causes the reflux of stomach acid into the mouth (heartburn).

Most importantly, with time your throat and mouth can become so burned by the stomach acid that you would not be able to eat without pain and then it becomes a real problem!

What do you have to do? Avoid:  too much chocolate, spicy foods, fatty foods, caffeine, acidic foods. Also ALCOHOL and SMOKING!!!

REMEMBER, all foods are good in moderation but when you overdose with those foods

= it would cause health problems!

Here is a little experiment for you to see that stomach acid can burn your throat because it is

very very  strong!!!

I need: salt, vinegar, and some dull pennies

Here are my pennies, perfectly dull and not shiny at all!

Now I combine salt and vinegar to get same substance that stomach acid is made of : HCl

Then I rub the coin with newly made HCL for about 15-20 seconds

Look what happens! My dull coin was transformed into bright and shiny coin!

THINK about it!

If stomach acid (HCl) can do THAT to a coin, can you imagine what it can do to your throat!!!!

Choose milk over coffee, choose fruits over chocolate, have spicy/acidic foods less often!

DONT smoke or drink alcohol!

Enjoy healthy life!!!

Back to Calcium or 'Did you know that every young girl becomes an old lady at some point?'

So remember I told you that when you put chicken bone inside a jar filled with vinegar, the bone would lose all of its calcium? Well, that’s what I did and here is what happened to the bone.

It became so soft that I could easily bend it! The same thing would happen to the human bones if they don’t get enough milk which contains calcium = bones would not contain enough calcium!

Having enough calcium is especially important for young girls because when they grow up, they become mothers  who would pass most of their calcium to their babies while the babies are still in the bellies. 

Eventually every girl goes through a transition to a mother and then to a grandmother.

Well, if during the first part of that transition the girl does not have enough calcium, something like that would happen by the time she gets to the third part of the transition (being an old lady)

The only way to avoid looking like that in the old age is to get enough calcium from milk or form other alternative source, such as: fortified soy beverage, yogurt, high calcium fish soup, calcium fortified orange juice!

DON’T FORGET: someday every  young girl is going to become an old lady and if she wants to be happy and healthy during the old age, she should make sure she gets enough CALCIUM right now when she is still a young girl!

Mr. Orange Juice, Truth or Dare?

Today I am going to show you how much vitamin C is in different types of orange juice drinks.

You have probably seen in the stores products which claim that their product provide THE highest source of vitamin C.

Pretty much every single box of orange juice has some kind of vitamin C claim....

Well, let’s see if they are telling the truth...

The way we can find out is through a simple chemistry experiment!

First of all, we are going to make standard solution.

The recipe is simple,

Corn starch and Water, here is what we get

The blurry solution is poured into the test tubes (5ml) each

[Sorry, didn’t have test tubes but these glasses worked out perfectly]

Now add one drop of 2% iodine to each of the test tubes [a la glasses] using an eye dropper

Iodine is naturally orange in color but when you add it to water with corn starch, it turns blue!

It actually looks pretty cool if you want to do it at home!

Finally, add 10 drops of different types of orange juices to each of the tubes.

In this experiment I used orange juice out from these products

The reason why we are adding drops of orange juice is because vitamin C in those juices discolors the blue solution according to the amount of vitamin C in each juice.

Here is what I got!

·         The first sample discolors the solution slightly; there is still a lot of bluish color on top.

·         Second sample (juice from fresh orange) discolors the solution completely!

·         Third sample with a claim "RICH in vitamin C" discolors the solution little better than the first one but not as well as the real orange juice dose!

THEREFORE, if you want to stay healthy in winter choose fresh oranges rather than packaged orange juices since real oranges REALLY have THE highest vitamin C content!

Food Servings - Diabetes

I have been talking about food for EVERYONE but since everyone is different I decided to give some insides on food servings for people with special needs, starting with individuals with diabetes.

If someone does not know, diabetes is a condition when one cannot eat too much sweet foods (sugar and baked goods). Some people would also require special shots with a substance called insulin...

BUT proper nutrition is still the key to healthy and happy life in spite of this condition.

So.... Coming back to food servings!

You have probably already noticed how much I love those food servings! :)

But there is a good reason behind it! EVERYTHING in MODERATION is actually what is the most crucial detail in a diet of each individual with any condition!

Food Servings for one day:

Vegetables - as much as you can grab with both hands

Grains & Fruit - size of your fist

Fat - no more than tip of your thumb

Meat - size of your palm

Also if you have diabetes, having nuts such as pistachios or almonds can actually greatly benefit your health!

P.s. Hope you enjoyed the pictures that I took for you, the idea was adopted from

Handy Portion Guide from Canadian DiabetesAssociation.

Check it out for more information on diabetes.

Bone-Pin = Calcium-Keen

Coming back to my previous post.

Here is a creative way to remind you of how many milk servings you need a day!
I have designed these cute pins that one can decorate and than write on it his/her favorite milk products :)

These pins can be used as a decoration for the school bags or clothes!

P.s. the pin is shaped like a bone to remind you that milk products are Oh So important for bones!

Importance of Calcium and Calcium Experiment

Why do we need calcium?

-         Build bones

-         Build muscles

-         Important to have it in blood

-         Teeth

-         Vital for women because lose more bone mass as they bear children

-         Important for babies

-         Involved in production & absorption of other nutrients

Also we are going to have an experiment to test how importnat it is to have calcium in our bones!

For the purpose of the experiment we are going to put chicken bone into the vinegar and keep it there for two weeks.

Vinegar would suck calcium out of the bone and we would have "Calcium-less Bone"

We will check it out in two weeks and see what would happen to the bone!

Great Way to Count your Food Servings

Here is a box that I have created based on the example on the right (down the page). It is a very useful tool to keep track of your daily food servings.

 

• The box includes four food groups with movable beads on the strings.
• Each bead counts as one food serving.
• Each food group (vegetables and fruit, grains, milk, meat) has different number of beads on the string.
• The number of beads is equal to the number of food servings that you must have in one day for that particular food group. .

Don’t be lazy! Every time you have some food, look it up on the back of the box's lid and see how many food servings you just had. Than move the bead to the right according to the food group that you just ate.

For example, if you ate a bagel - you look it up and see that bagel is equal to 2 grain servings.... now move the bead to the right under "grain products".

If by the end of the day all beads are moved to the right, you did a great job and met your daily requirements for ALL OF THE FOUR FOOD GROUPS!!!! :)

GOOD LUCK!!!