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Cooking From The Heart

Healthy Eating & Living Guide

Category: Healthy Eating

Fresh fruit and vegetables

Getting More Fibre Into Everyday Meals

Cooking from the heartHealthy Eating

Fibre is one of those nutrients most of us know we should eat more of. Few of us stop to think about where it actually comes from. The answer is simple. Fibre comes from plants, so the more whole plant foods on your plate, the more fibre you eat.

This guide looks at what fibre is and how much adults need. It also covers easy ways to add more of it to the meals you already cook. The figures here come from healthdirect, the Australian Government health information service. None of it calls for special products or expensive ingredients.

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6 Ways to Use Kelp Noodles

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Kelp is an edible brown seaweed that is high in nutrients. Kelp noodles are made with kelp, sodium alginate (a salt derived from seaweed), and water. They look similar to vermicelli, and have a mild crunchy texture and neutral taste, making them perfect to add to soups, sauces & salads with tasty dressings. Kelp is a common ingredient in Asian cuisine (Think kombu in Japanese dashi broths).

Nutritionally dense, kelp noodles are high in minerals such as potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron & amino acids. Kelp noodles are naturally high in iodine, so they are an excellent ingredient to include in your diet if you lack iodine or your low levels. Iodine consumption is ideal for healthy thyroid function, but too much can also suppress thyroid activity, so keep kelp in moderation & consume only once or twice a week.

Need a low-carb alternative to pasta & noodles? Kelp noodles are very low in calories and are gluten & egg free with virtually no carbohydrates. So how do you use them?

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How Creating A Wellness Space At Home Can Aid Your Journey To Drug Addiction Recovery

How Creating A Wellness Space At Home Can Aid Your Journey To Drug Addiction Recovery

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If you currently are or have recently been in a drug rehab program, we first want to wish you well on your road to recovering from drug addiction. As positive a step as it is to be aiming to break free of drugs, we appreciate it can also present its fair share of hurdles and setbacks, even to those with unflinching determination, so please stay as positive and committed to your recovery as you can.

Given that it is never a simple task to complete a drug rehab program, it is a welcome fact that there is no shortage of support aids to ending drug addiction which all come in many different forms. Most direct of them will be the support offered by the drug rehab program staff and drug councillors who are helping you beat your addiction.

In addition, there are also many things you can do to help yourself, and many of these will occur at home. The most obvious will be the support of the loved ones who live with you, and many drug addictions have ended thanks to the endless support that individuals have received from their families.

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Food not Good for Teeth

How to Eat Less Meat

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Studies have been showing us for some time now that eating red meat can increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. Meat might be delicious, pair beautifully with a glass of wine, and work with a multitude of recipes, but it’s not the best food product for our health.

What’s more, those who eat less meat or none at all often benefit from a lower risk of heart disease and a healthier body weight. Whether you want to decrease your meat intake or cut it out of your diet altogether, the following information might help.

Become a Bean Lover

Almost any meat dish can become a bean dish with one ingredient swap. Even your favourite tacos, soups, and stews can be equally as delicious with beans as they are with meat. Start small by replacing the meat with beans in your favourite recipes. Play around with different beans like chickpeas, cannellini, and lentils.

You will even grow to love the depth of flavour from a bean-based chilli dish that you may have previously loaded full of beef mince.

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Light Summer Meals Your Family Will Love

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The outside temperature can be a deciding factor in the recipes you look for, the food you eat, and even the wine you drink. The warmer it is, the more you seek out light summer meals your family will love.

As the mercury rises, it’s time to get creative in the kitchen. Here are some standout dishes that are light, delicious, and affordable.

Rice Paper Rolls

You often find that many summer recipes are salads. Not everyone wants to eat a salad every day of the week, which means that rice paper rolls can be a refreshing change. You can add all manner of salad ingredients and sauces, not to mention delectable prawns. Prepare them fresh for lunch or dinner, and enjoy how easy they are to make for everyone in the family.

Corn Fritters

Corn fritters, with delicious cheese, like feta, can be a light and tasty meal option for busy families. You can pair them with a side salad and dressing or eat them on their own as a snack with dipping sauce. Corn fritters are also easy to prepare and affordable.

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Filling Material

Which Filling Material Is Best for You?  

Cooking from the heartHealthy Eating

Australian men and women have an average of 7-8 fillings, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. However, if you were to ask any number of those men and women with fillings if they knew what filling material their dentist used, many of them wouldn’t have a clue.

Believe it or not, there is more than one filling material available, and what works for you may not work for someone else. Let your dentist help you decide, but read on to learn what options the average person has. These may differ from one dental clinic to the next.

The Steps Involved in A Filling

Fillings are a proven treatment method for cavities and cracked and broken teeth. Your dentist will numb the area with local anaesthetic then remove the decayed area with an abrasion instrument, drill, or laser. The tooth is then cleaned of debris and bacteria before a liner is put in to protect your tooth’s nerve.

Each layer of the process undergoes curing to harden the filling material, before the final result is trimmed, shaped, and polished to suit.

Cast Gold Fillings

Cast gold fillings are an option that some dentists and patients consider. They can last for up to 15 years and sometimes even longer, and they can be pleasing on the eye when compared to silver amalgam fillings. They can be a bit more expensive than other filling options, however.

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Food not Good for Teeth

The Food Your Teeth Won’t Thank You for Eating

Cooking from the heartHealth & Fitness, Healthy Eating

Oral health and physical health go hand in hand, but we’re probably still more likely to see a doctor regularly than a dentist. We’re probably also more likely to eat food that benefits our overall health, rather than focusing on what looks after our teeth, as well.

Of course, if food is good for your health and skin, then it’s most likely reasonably good for your teeth. Vegetables, in particular, can offer some surprising benefits for teeth health, such as cleaning plaque and freshening breath.

However, are you aware of what foods your teeth won’t thank you for eating? Read on to learn what to stay away from if you want to see your teeth in tip-top shape for your next dentist visit.

Bread

When you started thinking about food that will be bad for your teeth, you were probably thinking about sugar, but did you know that bread is your teeth’s foe, not a friend?

Chewing bread can certainly satiate your hunger, but your saliva breaks down the starches and turns them into sugar. It then sticks in between your teeth and can cause cavities. Fortunately, choosing whole-wheat varieties can limit the impact due to fewer sugars.

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Improve Your Skin

How Eating Well Can Improve Your Skin

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Growing old is inevitable. Time will change our skin, and no one is able to avoid age spots and wrinkles. However, how well your skin ages can have a lot to do with your health, sun and sun tanning exposure, chemicals, soaps, and your nutrition.

Nutrients are necessary for your body to shed old cells and replace them with new ones. Without the right nutrients, your skin won’t feel or look as youthful as it possibly could. Before you turn to anti-wrinkle creams, focus on your diet. Here are a few ways in which your diet can improve your skin.

An Apple a Day…

Most people know that old adage of an apple a day keeps the doctor away. That quote can ultimately link to everyone’s need to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables to remain healthy. Not only can you enjoy better health with a diet rich in vegetables and fruit, but better skin as well.

All manner of fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants that prevent cell damage. Carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, and kale, in particular, promote healthy skin cell development more than most.

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Shrimp and Wine

Serving Up Shrimp – Which Wine Works Well?

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As with any seafood, tasting that beautiful ‘sea’ flavour is essential. However, if you go and pair it with a glass of heavy, oaky wine you bought from an online wine retailer, or at a restaurant, you run the risk of merely feeling the food in your mouth. You will lose all connection with the subtle delicacies of the flesh and how the flavour dances on your palate.

Therefore, when it comes to pairing shrimp with wine, you want to treat it like a complex surgery. Every ingredient of your shrimp dish must work well with each undertone of the wine, which can often seem like a challenging and impossible task. Even though it is difficult, it’s certainly not impossible. We aim to offer some classic pairing combinations from your kitchen below.

Vinho Verde

Any Vinho Verde lover will tell you that you don’t need food to drink it because it’s fabulous on its own. While that’s undoubtedly true, this particular wine is a match made in heaven with most shrimp dishes. The best part is – because it’s available in red, white, or rose, you are bound to find one you like – from the first sip to the very last.

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Peach Jam

The Magic of Preserves

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For many preserving is classed as one of the dark arts of the kitchen. A mystifying process reserved for those with a supernatural ability to calculate a fruit’s pectin potential by just looking at it. These are people who have the innate ability to mix measured quantities of fruit and sugar in large pots and make the mix miraculously gel. They know the rules, they cast the spells. They collect the resulting concoction in recycled jars with homemade labels to adorn their pantry shelves while they await the inevitable apocalypse, or gift-giving season, whichever comes first.

The truth is, preserving will cast a spell on you. But only once you realize just how easy it is to do. The only magic going on is the simple pleasure of spreading a taste of summer on a piece of toast on a cold, wintery morning. And if you aren’t the kind of family that gets through jar after jar of jam, the feeling of goodwill  as you hand a friend a jar is heartwarming. Homemade always means something more.

Always the pedant, here’s a low-down of the different preserving definitions, just so we are all on the same page. All use the same process which is to heat fruit and sugar which releases pectin, the natural setting agent in fruit.

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