The “locavore” is someone who restricts their diet as much as possible to produce grown locally. Set your own limit – for example, a radius of 100 miles. Food that travels vast distances clocks up food miles and increases carbon emissions. Eating local produce brings you into contact with producers. To make that vital connection between food and people at the supply side, as well as the demand side, is to be more grounded and more eco-aware.

11 tips for a healthy heart

An apple a day.
The humble apple contains vitamin C and phenols to reduce cholesterol, and before we all had toothbrushes eating an apple was probably one of the best ways to clean your teeth. Given the suspected link between gum disease and heart disease this is probably why we were advised to “eat an apple before going to bed and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread”.

Eat dark chocolate.
Dark chocolate raises serotonin levels to keep you happy and calm, while the anti-oxidant flavonoids help lower cholesterol. Most interestingly it also contains epicatechin, which increases levels of nitric oxide in the blood. This miraculous molecule can lower blood pressure by relaxing blood vessels and may turn out to be one of the most important markers of heart health.

Get your oats.
There are at least four good reasons to have a bowl of porridge for breakfast, only one of which is the soluble fibre which can lower cholesterol levels. Oats are also very beneficial for maintaining blood sugar levels, are rich in calcium and potassium and are great for your digestive health.

Eat fish.
Oily fish is the best source of omega 3 essential fats, which thin the blood and lower cholesterol. People who eat oily fish or take a fish oil supplement regularly are less like to suffer a heart attack than those that don’t. Simple as that. Go for sustainable species such as sardines, mackerel or herring.

Drink red wine.
Most people’s favourite health food, second only to dark chocolate, moderate quantities of red wine have long been known to lower risks of heart disease. Resveratrol is the principle anti-oxidant in red wine and it is thought to reduce platelet aggregation which prevents excess blood clotting and reduces cholesterol levels.

Drink green tea.
All foods that contain anti-oxidants are good for your heart, and green tea contains high levels of the strongly anti-oxidant polyphenols. These increase nitric oxide, a molecule with a host of heart health benefits. Green tea also contains catechins which can reduce the risk of gum disease, itself a risk factor associated with heart disease.

Berry nice.
Along with green tea, berries are a good source of anti-oxidant polyphenols, which can dilate blood vessels hence reducing blood pressure. A broad range of other anti-oxidants also lower cholesterol and maintains healthy blood vessel walls. We all know blueberries are a superfood, but all berries are super – strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. Eat as a broad a selection as you can get.

Eat whole grains.
Whole grains are, as the name suggests, whole. They contain all of the nutrients, minerals and anti-oxidants present in the seed, and are also high in dietary fibre, and particularly soluble fibre, which is beneficial for reducing cholesterol levels. Soluble fibre in the gut binds to bile acids that would otherwise be converted into cholesterol, and removes them from the body.

Eat beans.
Along with whole grains, beans are a valuable source of soluble fibre. They are also rich in folate, one of the B vitamins that can reduce levels of homocysteine, a key marker for an increased risk of heart disease.

Go nuts.
A handful of nuts eaten a few times a week can reduce your chance of heart disease by 40%. The plant fibre and essential fats in nuts reduce cholesterol, and they are also rich in arginine, a precursor of nitric oxide which dilates blood vessels and thus reduces blood pressure.

Eat tofu.
Not only is tofu a low fat, healthy alternative to meat, like all soya products it is also rich in isoflavones. These have several benefits for the heart – they lower cholesterol, lower platelet aggregation and reduce the formation of platelet plaques on artery walls, plaques that are real risk factors in strokes and heart attacks.

As seen on Irish Parent Magazine May 2012

Select Stores Pineapple Power

Makes 10 ounces.Make sure you wash your fruit and vegetables where necessary

Ingredients:

one tablespoon of ripe mango

one tablespoon of ripe pineapple

one teaspoon of ripe banana

one teaspoon of ripe pear

small cup of freshly squeezed orange juice

teaspoon of natural non sugar yoghurt

squirt of honey.

Method:

You will need a blender and juicer for this recipe.

1.Peel and stone mango (adult supervision) and take a tablespoon of the flesh.

2.Peel and cube pineapple and take a heaped tablespoon.

3.Peel banana and take a teaspoon.

4.Peel and cube pear and take a teaspoon.

5.Pop all these fruits into blender.

6.Add teaspoon of natural non sugar yoghurt and the squirt of honey.

7.Then juice 2 peeled medium oranges in a juicer (no rind) add to blender.

8. Add ice if you wish.

9.Put lid on blender and blend for 30 seconds.

10. Pour into glass or bottle and take to school.

Will last up to 6 hours

Wow, No more Nosh in Dalkey.
A friendly yummy place.
Always buzzy and atmospheric.
Always consistently great.
Foodie Heaven.
Sam and Sacha Farrell. Lovely girls.
Sam Farrell loved cooking. She believed that great cooking came from the heart.
So passionate.
Sacha Farrell a fantastic front of house with winning personality.
Gave it their ALL.
Lovely team they had too.
Everyone worked hard.
Smiling. Attentive. Chatty.
Supported Dalkey life.
Looked after many tourist and visitor to Dalkey.
Never forgotten, only fond memories.
Nosh was about real food – big flavoured, unpretentious food in an environment to match.
Nothing too fancy, nothing careless or slapdash.
Nice uncomplicated food cooked with care and generosity.
So sad to say Goodbye to Nosh.
Always a warmth, always a soul.
See you again Soon Sam and Sacha.
a big Thank You from all your customers and fans.
XMissing you alreadyXXXX

Select Stores Dalkey donate fresh fruit platters for fundraiser for Save Your Mothers Heart Event today with Liljeberg sisters.

http://www.saveyourmothersheart.com/welcome/

Save Your Mother’s Heart welcomes you to explore what you can do for your heart. Life today is full of stress, unhealthy food, unhealthy life style and a focus on career and family rather than your own life.

The thought of cancer, and other dreadfull diseases often makes you forget about the heart. You get your smear test done, you check for breast cancer, but when did you get your blood screened?

Our Mother

Our Mother was our best friend and our hero. She always had time to listen. She was always willing to help out and she loved a good laugh!

Now she is gone and she will never come back.
The reason for this is because she never checked her heart. She passed away early in the morning on the 2nd of December 2006 just before she was supposed to be picking up the last christmas gifts on the market in San Pedro de Alcantara, Spain.

She told our Dad a few days before she passed that she was coming down with the flu and that she also felt some discomfort in her back from her golf bag. She mentioned that maybe it was angina. But that she wasn’t sure. Three days later she was gone!
We never had time to say our farewells. She was 58 years old.

None of us knew that heart disease is the number one killer of women.
Our Mom was healthy. She was of normal weight and she performed light exercise on a daily basis. She ate healthy and neither smoked nor drank.

The pain that we have experienced in our family because of her premature passing, is so awful that our wish is to make other families avoid it, if it is possible.

We loved our Mom and this is our gift to her – to try to save as many women’s hearts as possible. Through awareness. The question that we now set out on a mission to ask every woman and get you the reader to ask your female friends, family and co-workers is: ”When did you last get your heart checked”?

Save Your Mothers Heart is therapy for us and a way for us to handle our huge loss – to try to create something good out of something bad.

Please support us by spreading this information all over the world! Please just ask a woman today when and if they plan to get their blood screened and their heart checked.

Thank you,

Why Eat Organic Food – Ten Irresistible Reasons

Here are great reasons to eat organically:

1.Organic food is the best quality food you can eat because it free from the chemicals used in conventional farming and is grown in rich soil. No food has higher amounts of beneficial minerals, essential amino acids and vitamins than organic food. Organic food contains higher levels of vitamin C and minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron and chromium as well as cancer-fighting antioxidants. Organic milk has 68% more Omega 3 essential fatty acids. And nutrients aside, would you rather eat an apple that has been sprayed up to 16 times with as many as 30 different pesticides – or an organic one?
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2.Organic processed foods are better for you because they don’t contain hydrogenated fats. Trans fats have no known nutritional benefits and because of the effect they haven on blood cholesterol, they increase the risk of coronary heart disease. Evidence suggests that the effects of trans fats are worse than the effects of saturated fats.

3.Organic processed foods contain no artificial additives and preservatives. Some chemical additives that preserve food or add colour or flavour affect individual well being, for example, tartrazine food colouring is linked with hyperactivity. All controversial additives are banned in organic food, which means you avoid a wide range and large quantity of potentially allergenic or harmful additives.

4.Organic food and farming forbids any inclusion of genetically modified foods or organisms. Genetic modification is an unnecessary and dangerous manipulation of our food supply – not for the benefit of people, but to make profits for the massive chemical companies that are manufacturing them and trying to push them on an unwilling and uninformed people.

5.Organic farming is better for wildlife and allows bugs, butterflies and birds to thrive on farmland that is not poisoned with pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. The Irish government’s advisors found the insect, bird and plant life is up to 50% greater on organic farms. Organic farming relies on wildlife to help control pests, so wide field edges are left uncultivated for bugs, bees and birds to flourish.

6.Intensive agriculture regularly sprays weeds with weed killer, bugs with bug killer and fungi with mould killer. These poisons are in our soil and water and the most far flung parts of the world. Water companies charge us to clean these chemicals out of our drinking water. Organic farming rarely – if ever – uses chemical poisons.

7.Organic farming provides the best living conditions for farm animals, allowing them to live a more natural , stress-free life.

8.Unlike conventional farming, which is dependent on fossil fuel-based fertilisers, organic farming relies on compost, green manures and crop rotation to create soil fertility.

9.Over 20% of the Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions come from industrialized food and farming. To produce just one ton of nitrogen fertilizer takes one ton of oil and one hundred tones of water – and produces seven tonnes of greenhouse gasses. This is clearly not sustainable. By choosing organic, we can significantly reduce our carbon footprint.

10.Conventional farming routinely adds antibiotics to animal feed because many animals in conventional farming are stressed and become ill – and to speed animal growth. Antibiotic residues in meat and dairy products could result in the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria that make people sick, thereby reducing the effectiveness of our antibiotics.

With Ireland in the worst recession it has ever faced, you’d think eco- friendly organic baby products might have taken a bit of a hammering. People often associate environmentally-friendly with being expensive, but with the recession still biting, are parents still willing to shell out for organic green products?

People still want eco-friendly products but they now want better value. More people are ordering in bulk rather than buying single items which can be more affordable.
Once parents have introduced their children to, for example, organic foods, they find it extremely difficult to go back, and that eco-friendly products do bring great benefits.
Disposable eco nappies are great in terms of preventing nappy rash and they’re convenient, which is a big thing for parents these days. People mightn’t be able to do everything in as ‘ green’ a manner as they’d like, but at least with the eco nappies you feel you are doing something useful for the environment.

Organic is a huge watchword these days and it means products that strive to reduce nasty or harmful ingredients and increase the quantity of positive, wholesome ones. It is clearly defined under EU law and two certifying bodies exist in Ireland: www. iofga. org and www. organic-trust. org.

Food companies such as Plum Baby and Ella’s Kitchen specialise in nutritious organic food for children while the Organic Supermarket in Blackrock is Ireland’s first organic supermarket ( www.organicsupermarket.ie). As well as this there is a wealth of great organic food shops and cafes around the country bringing people fresh delicious organic food such as Organico in Bantry, Co Cork ( www. organico. ie), The Happy Pear in Greystones, Co Wicklow ( www.thehappypear.ie) and Select Stores in Dalkey, Co Dublin ( www.selectstores.ie).
In terms of organic and eco-friendly products for children’s skin, the range is growing all the time.

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