Anyone for a Cheeseburger?
A word about magnesium, first.
This trace mineral is already known to help build bones and regulate the body's temperature, as well as working with vitamin C to to build collagen and with vitamin B1 in the breakdown and digestion of fatty acids and sugars. If you want a good read about all it can do, check out this site. I have used it for a long time at bedtime as a natural relaxant that helps me get to sleep. I've told others about it and they've all said it helped them, too.
Today I discovered something new about it that a lot of baby-boomers might find interesting, as well as anyone else who plans on growing old, rather than the alternative. Magnesium is now being investigated as an aid to maintaining memory function into the later years. Guosong Liu, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences, at MIT's Picower Centre for Learning and Memory has found that the mineral helps to regulate a brain receptor important to learning and memory.
It's not hard to come up short of magnesium since caffeine and alcohol both deplete it, so how do you get enough of the mineral daily? Well, 3 & 1/2 ounces of any of the following can do it for you. Try some wheat bran or germ, almonds, cashews or walnuts, tofu, molasses , shrimp, garlic, raisins, sweet corn, avocado, banana, carrots or kelp. There are other foods as well. The above link will give you a longer list. You can also go the supplement route, and take anywhere from 50 mg to a couple of hundred in timed release form. It's damn near impossible to take it up to toxicity levels because that usually happens only with liver or kidney malfunctions. Otherwise, if you get too enthusiastic and down too much of the stuff, you'll just find yourself dealing with the laxative effect higher doses of it can have. Nothing a day of abstinence can't fix.
Give it a thought.
Now to an intake problem of ponderous proportions.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed an act recently, called the "Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act". It's being nicknamed the Cheeseburger Bill and has stirred up a tempest in a teacup in response. Litigation over obesity was becoming a very real threat to the food industry, but it may have been overcome on March 10, 2004 when the US House of Representatives passed the Cheeseburger Bill which states that overeating is a problem for individuals and not for the courts. The act would ban all new cases and dismiss all pending federal and state suits in which damages are being sought as conditions connected to obesity attributed to restaurant food. In other words, if you want to nosh regularly on Big Macs, the choice is yours. Ain't nobody holding a gun to your head! Some people are up in arms about the bill and its proposed passage through the Senate. I think the whole fuss is a lot of verbiage aimed at clouding over the real issue of people taking responsibility for their own actions.
They could start by dragging out the dictionary and looking up "self-determination" and "responsibility". Maybe they could sit and think about it a while over a helping of any of the foods listed above. You'll note there's nothing there from the McDonald's menu, or any other fast-food joint either. Maybe they could continue to ponder the whole question while they take a long walk, or go for a bike ride or work out at the gym. Maybe, just maybe, they'll begin to get the idea that their weight is something they are in charge of, solely. To try to blame some restaurant is to try to suggest that they have no power of self-determination at all, and should best be placed in institutionalized care so as to avoid any future overindulgence at the food trough.
This trace mineral is already known to help build bones and regulate the body's temperature, as well as working with vitamin C to to build collagen and with vitamin B1 in the breakdown and digestion of fatty acids and sugars. If you want a good read about all it can do, check out this site. I have used it for a long time at bedtime as a natural relaxant that helps me get to sleep. I've told others about it and they've all said it helped them, too.
Today I discovered something new about it that a lot of baby-boomers might find interesting, as well as anyone else who plans on growing old, rather than the alternative. Magnesium is now being investigated as an aid to maintaining memory function into the later years. Guosong Liu, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences, at MIT's Picower Centre for Learning and Memory has found that the mineral helps to regulate a brain receptor important to learning and memory.
It's not hard to come up short of magnesium since caffeine and alcohol both deplete it, so how do you get enough of the mineral daily? Well, 3 & 1/2 ounces of any of the following can do it for you. Try some wheat bran or germ, almonds, cashews or walnuts, tofu, molasses , shrimp, garlic, raisins, sweet corn, avocado, banana, carrots or kelp. There are other foods as well. The above link will give you a longer list. You can also go the supplement route, and take anywhere from 50 mg to a couple of hundred in timed release form. It's damn near impossible to take it up to toxicity levels because that usually happens only with liver or kidney malfunctions. Otherwise, if you get too enthusiastic and down too much of the stuff, you'll just find yourself dealing with the laxative effect higher doses of it can have. Nothing a day of abstinence can't fix.
Give it a thought.
Now to an intake problem of ponderous proportions.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed an act recently, called the "Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act". It's being nicknamed the Cheeseburger Bill and has stirred up a tempest in a teacup in response. Litigation over obesity was becoming a very real threat to the food industry, but it may have been overcome on March 10, 2004 when the US House of Representatives passed the Cheeseburger Bill which states that overeating is a problem for individuals and not for the courts. The act would ban all new cases and dismiss all pending federal and state suits in which damages are being sought as conditions connected to obesity attributed to restaurant food. In other words, if you want to nosh regularly on Big Macs, the choice is yours. Ain't nobody holding a gun to your head! Some people are up in arms about the bill and its proposed passage through the Senate. I think the whole fuss is a lot of verbiage aimed at clouding over the real issue of people taking responsibility for their own actions.
They could start by dragging out the dictionary and looking up "self-determination" and "responsibility". Maybe they could sit and think about it a while over a helping of any of the foods listed above. You'll note there's nothing there from the McDonald's menu, or any other fast-food joint either. Maybe they could continue to ponder the whole question while they take a long walk, or go for a bike ride or work out at the gym. Maybe, just maybe, they'll begin to get the idea that their weight is something they are in charge of, solely. To try to blame some restaurant is to try to suggest that they have no power of self-determination at all, and should best be placed in institutionalized care so as to avoid any future overindulgence at the food trough.
2 Comments:
Very well written. I appreciate your "tastefully" articulated opinion on the matter. I also appreciate your alliterations which make the blog that much more delightful to read.
When I grow up, I want to write just like you!
I agree, the cheeseburger bill is just dumb. I can just see the warning labels on big macs ... "eat too much of this, and you'll grow fat and die." Of course, that won't stop many people. Warning labels on cigarettes haven't halted sales.
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