Christmas Blessings

Greetings faithful readers. 

Christmas evokes traditions, memories, gifts, and much more. It’s the time of year when foods play a major role in our celebrations. Instead of more information to close out this holiday season, I refer you to a few previous Christmas posts from my blog.

• For special dishes see Sweet Potatoes or Yams for the Holidays.

• For cautions about overeating, look at a 2011 post Healthy Indulgence for the Holidays.

• Don’t forget information about food safety and sanitation, Food-Safe through the Holidays.

• Concerned about weight-gain? See Holidays―Not the Time to Diet, Healthy Indulgence for the Holidays, or Christmas Ribbon Salad―A Lighter Treat for Christmas.

• For interesting tidbits about food see Sugar Plums for Christmas.

While these food or food-related posts are important snippets of information, let’s not forget the most important aspects of this Holy Holiday.

For those who have forgotten or never knew, Christmas is the observance of the birth of Jesus Christ. In his brief ministry of about three years, Jesus declared many truths about himself. In John 6:48, he refers to himself as the “bread of life.” Indeed, he is. While residents of this world, the foods we eat feed our earthly bodies. Jesus alone is the bread of life for eternity. He proclaimed, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to [God] except through me” (John 14:6).

Enjoy the holiday and all it has come to represent but don’t forget that Jesus is the real reason for this season. God bless.

Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year.

 

 

 

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Do Diet Colas MakeYou Fat?

Just when you thought you were helping the body by substituting artificial sweeteners for sugars, along comes evidence to the contrary.

A 2006 study found that substituting aspartame sweetened products for sugar-based ones resulted in weight loss of nearly a half-pound per week. Food Insight (July/August 2008) reported that “low-calorie sweeteners can be effective for weight management.” But a Purdue University study that same year found that saccharin led to increased appetite and weight gain in rats.

Two recent studies indicate diet colas may increase problems we don’t want. A Texas study of subjects aged 65 to 74 found that over nearly a decade, those who drank diet colas had a seventy percent greater increase in waist size than those who avoided artificially sweetened drinks. When consumption increased to two or more diet colas per day, waist circumference increased 500 percent or five times that of their non-diet drinking friends. Over a span of seven to eight years, diet colas significantly increased the chance of becoming overweight.

How could this be? According to researchers, you can fool the sense of taste, but you can’t fool the brain. Artificial sweeteners confuse the body’s ability to tell when you are full and may trigger appetite. They may also damage brain cells and inhibit feelings of fullness.

A 2004 position paper in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (Vol. 104:2), reported “Nonnutritive sweeteners do not affect glycemic response and can be safely used by those with diabetes.”  Now recent studies refute those findings. The sweet taste of artificial sweeteners may cause the body to produce insulin which blocks the body’s ability to burn fat. Mice fed aspartame in their food for three months had higher blood sugar levels than mice that ate regular food. Other studies have linked diet colas to increased incidences of diabetes, heart attack, and stroke.

What should you do? Like all foods, moderation is the key. Beverages such as unsweetened juice, low-fat milk, or plain ol’ water may be wiser choices. Diet colas contain no nutritive value, and now studies find they may cause harm. Limiting the amount you drink can decrease concerns about the impact of diet colas on health and whether they help your figure or make you fat.

References:

 http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/diet-soda-may-be-making-you-fat-2504019

 http://diabetescenter.blogspot.com/2011/06/diet-soda-linked-to-larger-waist-higher.html

 

 

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