7 Ways To Avoid Gas from Beans

There are hundreds of varieties of legumes, and every one of them is good for your body in some way. Some of the varieties include peas, lentils, garbanzo bean/chickpeas and peanuts (yes, peanuts are a legume).

WHY EAT BEANS, PEAS, LENTILS AND PEANUTS?

• High in protein: 1/2 cup (4 ounces) of beans is equivalent to eating two ounces of lean protein. Nutritional guidelines recommend that most adults eat about 5 1/2 ounces of lean meat a day.
• High in fiber: ½ cup serving of cooked dry beans has 4 to 10 grams of fiber.
• Rich in complex carbohydrates.
• Good source of iron, zinc, calcium, selenium and folate.
• Rich in antioxidants.
• Low in fat.
• Provide a low glycemic index.

Research has shown that the legume family may help to reduce chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes mellitus, inflammatory diseases, osteoporosis, depression, obesity, cancer and stroke.

In some Eastern cultures, legumes are and were a basic dietary staple that can be traced back more than 20,000 years.

So why don’t we eat more beans? GAS is the short answer!

The jokes about gassy beans are just as common as the experience! The truth is beans do cause many people to have gas in the intestines for a very real reason.

Beans contain a triple sugar, stachyose; a quadruple sugar, raffinose; and a five sugar, verbascose that we cannot digest. We are missing an enzyme that is required to break down these sugars. When the beans get to the colon, the bacteria in the colon begins to ferment these sugars producing gas in the process.

If you gradually increase the amount of beans you eat over several weeks most people will overcome flatulence, provided you do a few simple things in terms of how you cook them and what combinations you eat. The benefit of eating more of these sugars in beans is that it promotes the growth of intestinal bacteria, and these bacteria create an environment in the colon that lowers the risk for cancer.

HOW TO DECREASE INTESTINAL GAS FROM BEANS, PEAS, & LENTILS

1. Learn how to cook beans: see my recipe. It is easy to cook beans but it requires planning ahead of time.

2. Eat lots of vegetables, particularly green ones, with your beans (75 percent of the meal should be vegetables).

3. Since beans are slow to digest, follow these guidelines:

• Eat fruit or sugar foods 2 – 3 hours away from a meal with beans.

• Only eat one protein in the same meal, as each protein requires a specific type and strength of digestive juices.

• Potatoes conflict with digestion of the beans–so avoid eating them in the same meal.

• Eat a whole grain with beans to compliment them.

4. In Japan and far East Asia they add a piece of seaweed (Kombu or Wakame) after the beans have been cooked as it makes the beans more digestible, more nutritious and tastes great! Read more about seaweed.

5. Use digestive spices: in India they cook ginger, turmeric and sometimes fennel and asafetida with beans to make them more digestible.

6. Chew and savor your beans! Digestion starts in the mouth. Savor bean soup in the mouth before swallowing to begin the process of digestion.

7. Start with mung beans, adzuki and dhal, as they are easy to digest because they are low in the complex sugars that are easily broken down by the human digestive enzymes. Even invalids can digest these ones. If you’re new to beans, start with a small amount and increase gradually by eating them once a week then twice a week, etc. Do keep up eating beans regularly so your system learns how to digest them.

Ways to include beans, peas and lentils to your diet:

• Add beans to your favorite vegetable soup or stew.
• Add beans to your salads.
• Instead of meat in chili and stews, add beans.
• Add beans to your favorite rice dishes.
• Consider making at least one day of the week a vegetarian day.
• Plan meals ahead for a week, adding beans to the daily menus.
• Try a new legume each week.

7 Benefits of Artichokes You Didn’t Know

Pop quiz: Which of these two foods has more fiber, oats or artichokes?

If you thought oats have the highest amount of fiber, you’re incorrect! Artichokes have more dietary fiber than any vegetable or grain. A medium-sized artichoke has 7 grams of fiber – 28 percent of daily recommended fiber.

But the benefits of artichokes don’t end there. Here are 7 reasons you should eat artichokes or take artichoke leaf extract.

1. Regulate cholesterol levels

Artichokes contain cynarin, an acid that increases bile production in the liver and consequently lowers cholesterol levels in the body.

It’s also worth noting that fiber helps remove bad cholesterol from the body. According to this study, cholesterol levels of participants who took artichoke leaf extract (ALE) for 12 weeks were reduced by 4.2 percent.

2. Improve your digestion

Artichokes will improve your digestion, thanks to fiber and cynarin. For one thing, cynarin eliminates bloating and helps relieve digestive pain.

Fiber improves bowel movement thus preventing constipation and gas. But for fiber to work, you have to be properly hydrated.

3. Improve liver function

Artichokes will improve liver health due to their strong antioxidant properties. In fact, they can lower risk of liver cancer. In this study, researchers found that artichokes slowed down activity of liver cancer cells.

4. Lower blood pressure

Artichokes contain potassium which helps offset the effects of high sodium intake. And as you may know, high sodium intake increases blood pressure. It’s also worth noting that potassium helps reduce water retention and bloating.

5. Fight free radicals

Did you know that a medium-sized artichoke contains 25 percent of daily recommended vitamin C? This vitamin has antioxidant action that stops free radicals from stressing and damaging your cells. Vitamin C also helps wounds heal fast and strengthens the immune function.

6. Lower risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia

Artichokes contain vitamin K. This vitamin is widely known for helping blood clot, but it can also improve brain function and consequently lower risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Vitamin K regulates calcium levels in the brain (and bones as well). Research shows that people with low levels of vitamin K have dysregulated calcium in the brain and this can cause Alzheimer’s.

7. Boost metabolic function

Artichokes will boost your metabolic function because they contain manganese. This nutrient is used in the metabolism of fatty acids, cholesterol and amino acids. Your body absorbs nutrients optimally when it gets enough manganese.

What’s the Best Sleep Position?

It makes sense that your sleep position can have an impact on your overall health, right? We’ve all woken up from time to time with a crick in our necks or a weird leg cramp, and it is no fun at all. Spending eight hours on your side or on your back puts pressure on nerves and muscles, and we can feel the effects of a wonky sleep position the next day.

 If you deal with chronic pain or conditions like acid reflux, your sleep position can have an even more powerful impact on your comfort. Finding the best sleep position can make the difference between restorative rest and a night of tossing and turning.

So, what’s the best sleep position? It depends. 

To alleviate back and shoulder pain, you can combine a beneficial sleep position with some strategic pillow placement to give your body extra support while you snooze. Pillows can help you sleep through bouts of acid reflux, too. And if foot pain is keeping you awake, just tucking your sheets more loosely can make a difference.

The graphic below looks at a handful of aches, pains and conditions that can keep us from getting a good night’s sleep along with tricks to overcome them. You can click the image to view a full-sized version, if you’re having trouble reading the small text. You can also scroll down for a summary of this infographic’s helpful sleeping tips.

NECK PAIN

Keep the neck in a neutral position. Avoid sleeping on the stomach. Too many pillows can put your neck in a bent position. Keep your pillow above your shoulders. Some experts suggest using a rolled up hand towel to support the neck.

OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA & SNORING

Sleep on your side or stomach to avoid impaired breathing. One way to keep from rolling onto your back is to sew a tennis ball into the back of your pajama top.

ACID REFLUX

Use pillows to elevate your head or use bricks to elevate the front legs of the bed. Otherwise, sleep on your side.

SHOULDER PAIN

Don’t sleep on the shoulder that causes you pain. Or, if you do, place a pillow next to you and place your arm over it—almost as if you’re hugging another person.

BACK PAIN

The best sleep position for back pain is generally on your back with a pillow under your knees or a rolled up towel under the small of your back.

On your side, put a pillow between your knees for extra support. This is also good for people with hip and knee problems. A fetal-like position can help with lumbar spinal stenosis.

Sleeping on your stomach can be hard on your back and neck. But if you must, put a pillow under your back and lower abdomen to relieve strain.

PLANTAR FASCIITIS

Plantar Faciitis is an inflammation of the tissue on the bottom of the foot caused by running or poor arch support. Keep your ankles and feet in a relaxed position. Avoid tucking in the sheets too tightly.

The Healthy Fat You Should Eat Daily. It fights cancer and diabetes

The deeper one looks into nutrition, the more complex it becomes.  Balancing the numerous priorities we are told we should have, such as eating foods that are high in antioxidant levels, they need to have the right fats in the right amounts, they need to provide us with energy but also help us recover from workouts, etc.  It is very hard to pinpoint the right foods to cover all these bases, however, there are a couple of basic principles you should ask yourself in order to determine if a particular food should be consumed; does it have a TV commercial and/or would my great-great grandmother recognize it?

If the answer to either of these questions is yes, stay away!  If you apply this test to Lard, it passes!  But haven’t we all heard it’s bad?  The name itself sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen.  Why?  It’s a interesting story.  In the early 1900’s the major U.S. company Procter & Gamble was in the business of growing cotton… it was very profitable for them.  However, there was a bothersome by-product, cottonseed.  Procter & Gamble made the smart business decision to investigate if they could do anything with cottonseed to turn this by-product into a revenue stream.  They found that after intense processing they could extract an oil from the seed (it easily turned rancid and was a very unstable fat)… so they hydrogenated it and found that it now had a long shelf life and when it cooled it looked and acted like lard.  They decided to call it Crisco.  Unfortunately, Crisco is not lard but got lumped into it an became synonymous (very undeserved).

Lard is simply pig fat taken from any area of the pig that has a high concentration of fatty tissue.  Lard (in its natural form) has no trans fats, is high (50%) in mono-saturated fat and contains (40%) saturated fat.  Saturated fat was once the enemy of nutritionists, however, more recent study’s have turned that on its head with modern research pointing out that saturated fat (when combined with a low carb and sugar diet) can raise HDL cholesterol.  If cholesterol is still a concern of yours, the amount of cholesterol in lard should be put into perspective; lard contains about one third the amount of cholesterol as butter.  You would need to consume a whole cup of lard to equal the cholesterol from just one egg.

The below chart compares the level of Saturated fat, Mono-saturated fat and poly-saturated fat in Olive oil, Lard, Butter and Coconut oil.  You will notice that two of the most fashionable oils right now in nutrition are polar opposites. Olive oil is almost all saturated fat with almost no mono-saturated fat.  Conversely, Coconut oil is almost all mono-saturated fat with almost no saturated fat.  Lard is the only one to offer both of these healthy fats in moderation.

One of the biggest benefits of lard verses other oils is its high smoke point, creating lower levels of aldehydes (which are a concentration of chemicals that are produced when oil is heated up an starts to break down).  This high smoke point results in less free-radicals being consumed into our body.  Lard is also a good source of vitamin D, which about 42% of U.S. adults are deficient in.

One important thing to remember is how to identify real lard from the imitations: Lard that is solid a room temperature and/or does not need to be refrigerated DOES have trans fat and does NOT have vitamin D.

Most farmers who raise pigs can help you get lard, but if you don’t happen to live next to pig farm, lard is easy to make!  Ask your butcher for some back fat, leaf lard or simply use any pork bacon or pork belly, cut off the fat and render it by cooking it slow over the stove (very low temperature) or in a 250 degree oven for about 6-7 hours.  Strain and chill.  You now have lard!

China's 'One Belt, One Road' project causing anxiety: US

The US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Scott also said China's 'One Belt, One Road' project has caused "anxiety" in the region.

There is no change in the US' policy towards Beijing on the South China Sea dispute and use of force and coercion by China in the region cannot be accepted at all, a top American Naval Commander said today.

Indicating concern over China bolstering its naval prowess, US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Scott, here to explore ways to boost Indo-US naval ties, also said China's 'One Belt, One Road' project has caused "anxiety" in the region.

Swift said the US and India were boosting cooperation in the maritime domain and navies of the two nations will carry out a mega exercise in July with a major focus on anti- submarine warfare.

He held extensive talks with Navy Chief Sunil Lanba and Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar during which a number of issues of common concern were discussed, besides preparation for the Malabar Naval exercise.

"I do not see any change (in our policy)," he told reporters when asked about reports that the Trump regime was relaxing its position on the South China Sea issue to garner China's support to ease tension in the Korean peninsula.

He said the South China Sea dispute must be resolved as per UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the US rejects use of coercion and force.

"The US has a view that in order to maintain the veracity of the UNCLOS, it is important to challenge the claims which are excessive and beyond the context of the UN Law and convention," Swift said.

The American Naval Commander also referred to India accepting ruling of a tribunal to resolve water dispute with Bangladesh despite the verdict going against it.

"India is a major power but still it accepted the verdict," he said, suggesting that China must accept decision on the South China Sea by the relevant international tribunal.

Asked about the tension in the Korean peninsula, he said the issue should be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue.

Referring to China launching its second aircraft carrier, Swift said the Chinese naval capability is going to grow. He added that the US and India were aiming to deepen naval cooperation.

Asked whether India and the US were considering joint patrol.

Asked whether Australia and Japan will be part of the Malabar exercise in the Bay of Bengal, he said planning for the exercise was going and suggested that no decision was taken yet. Japan had participated in the annual exercise last year.

He suggested that the annual exercise will be bigger this time and that air defence and anti-submarine warfare will form a large part of the exercise.

Before arriving here, Swift visited Australia and Indonesia.

Revealed- How world's biggest volcanoes are formed

A new study has solved the 168-year-old mystery of how the worlds biggest and most active volcanoes formed in Hawaii.

The findings led the Australian National University (ANU) by found that the volcanoes were formed along twin tracks due to a shift in the Pacific plates direction three million years ago.

The Pacific Plate is a tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At 103 million square kilometres, it is the largest tectonic plate on the Earth.

The scientists had known of the existence of the twin volcanic tracks since 1849, but the cause of them had remained a mystery until now, said lead researcher Tim Jones from Australian National University (ANU).

Jones, a PhD student from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES) said, "The discovery helps to better reconstruct Earths history and understand part of the world that has captivated peoples imagination."

The analysis we did on past Pacific plate motions is the first to reveal that there was a substantial change in motion 3 million years ago.

Jones said, "It helps to explain the origin of Hawaii, Earths biggest volcanic hot-spot and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world."

Twin volcanic tracks exist in other parts of the Pacific, including Samoa, and the new study published in the journal Nature found that these also emerged three million years ago.

Jones said this kind of volcanic activity was surprising because it occurred away from tectonic plate boundaries, where most volcanoes are found.

He said, "Heat from the Earths core causes hot columns of rock, called mantle plumes, to rise under tectonic plates and produce volcanic activity on the surface."

Jones said,"Mantle plumes have played a role in mass extinctions, the creation of diamonds and the breaking up of continents."

The twin volcanic tracks emerged because the mantle plume was out of alignment with the direction of the plate motion, said co-researcher Rhodri Davies from RSES.

Davies said,"Our hypothesis predicts that the plate and the plume will realign again at some stage in the future, and the two tracks will merge to form a single track once again."

"Plate shifts have been occurring constantly, but irregularly, throughout Earths history. Looking further back in time we find that double tracks are not unique to young Hawaiian volcanism - indeed, they coincide with other past changes in plate motion," said Davies.

Hawaii sits at the south-eastern limit of a chain of volcanoes and submerged sea-mounts which get progressively older towards the north west.

Sounding rocket that will capture 1500 images of the Sun launching today, announces NASA!

RAISE images are used to create a data product called a spectrogram, which separates light from the Sun into all its different wavelength components.

NASA is scheduled to launch a sounding rocket today, designed to capture 1500 images of the Sun within five minutes from a distance of 320 km above the Earth.

Called the Rapid Acquisition Imaging Spectrograph Experiment (RAISE) mission, the project will be thoroughly analyzing split-second changes occurring near the Sun's active regions – areas of intense, complex magnetic activity that can give rise to solar flares, which eject energy and solar material out into space.

At present, the Sun is being closely monitored by numerous other missions, including NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO). However, certain areas of the Sun demand especially high-cadence observations in order to understand the rapid changes occurring there.

"Dynamic processes happen on all timescales," said Don Hassler, principal investigator for the RAISE mission at the Southwest Research Institute in the US.

"With RAISE, we'll read out an image every two-tenths of a second, so we can study very fast processes and changes on the Sun. That's around five to 10 times faster than comparable instruments on other sounding rocket or satellite missions," said Hassler.

RAISE images are used to create a data product called a spectrogram, which separates light from the Sun into all its different wavelength components.

By looking at the intensity of light at each wavelength, scientists can assess how solar material and energy moves around the Sun, and how that movement evolves into massive solar eruptions.

"RAISE is pushing the limits of high-cadence observations, and doing so is challenging. But that's exactly what the NASA sounding rocket programme is for," Hassler said.

Sounding rockets have short-lived flights, with most of them having a life-span of 15-20 minutes, out of which, just five to six of those minutes are spent making observations from above the atmosphere, observations that can only be done in space.

These rockets also have a parabolic trajectory in the shape of a frown.

In RAISE's case, the extreme ultraviolet light the instruments observe can not penetrate Earth's atmosphere. After the flight, the payload parachutes to the ground, where it can be recovered for use again.

This will be the RAISE mission's third flight, and the scientists have continuously updated its technology.

For the upcoming flight, they have refurbished the detectors and updated the flight software, and the payload carries a new diffraction grating, which reflects light and separates it into its separate wavelengths.

The launch window for RAISE opens at 2:25 pm EDT (11:55 pm IST) in New Mexico. The precise timing of the launch depends on weather conditions, and coordinated timing with other space observatories such as NASA's SDO and IRIS.