Archive for October, 2008

Happy Pumpkin Carving

Posted by admin on October 18, 2008  |  No Comments

Well, it’s that time of year again.  And even though we don’t go “all out” and celebrate Halloween, I do love fall and many of the fall activites.  This year we went to a pumpkin patch, and each got a small pie pumpkin as part of the deal.  Well, my daughter has been on me all week to carve the pumpkins, so I finally gave in.  After carving the usual triangle eyes, triangle nose and toothy grin, I decided that I needed a little help on my son’s pumpkin.  For those of you who want to be the coolest mom on the block, visit JamminPumpkins.  It’s a really cool site with patterns for amazing pumpkin designs.  At only $2 a pattern (and a few available for free), you’ll be glad you did!

Filed Under: Family and Parenting

Beware of Junk Foods Being Promoted As Health Food – HFCS is Not Healthy

Posted by admin on October 17, 2008  |  No Comments

Beware of Junk Foods Being Promoted As Health Food – HFCS is Not Healthy
By Mike Geary

You may have seen a whole new slew of advertisements online and on television trying to revamp the poor image of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). They are basically trying to promote this junk food additive as “healthy”.

The advertising campaigns don’t come right out and make the claim that high fructose corn syrup is “health food”, but they do try to get clever and fool people into thinking that it’s not bad for your health. In fact, they make these misleading claims:

“It’s all natural”

“It’s no worse for you than table sugar”

“It’s made from corn”

“It has the same calories as table sugar”

As you can see, these ads are trying to deceive us into thinking that HFCS isn’t so bad after all… I mean, they do say that it’s “all natural” and “made from corn”. These ads are pure sleaze!

In my opinion, these ads are highly immoral. For one, as if our nation, and the world for that matter, wasn’t already suffering an obesity epidemic, as well as skyrocketing degenerative diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Now, they’re trying to make matters worse by fooling innocent people into thinking that high fructose corn syrup is somehow healthy. Meanwhile, as society and our kids get fatter and more unhealthy, they’re lining their pockets with massive profits since HFCS is in the majority of processed food.

As for their claim that HFCS is “no worse for you than sugar”… I’m not even going to discusss any of the science about how HFCS affects the leptin and insulin process in your body, your blood sugar process, appetite levels, etc. Instead, I want to make a more important point:

Who cares if HFCS is “no worse for you than sugar”… because sugar is one of the worst things you can ingest in your body anyway, so it is not even a valid argument!

The point you need to understand is that if you want to be lean and healthy for life, you should be minimizing, or even eliminating all sugar and high fructose corn syrup. In fact, most processed food should be eliminated altogether if you want to be serious about getting lean.

As for their claim that HFCS is “all-natural”… don’t even get me started! It’s just a ridiculous statement to begin with. I don’t care if you call it “natural” or artificial, the bottom line is that it’s a highly processed, refined substance that makes you fat!

So the next time you’re thinking about drinking that can of soda, or eating that candy bar or cupcakes, just think about how that is only going directly against your efforts to lose body fat and can even lead to other health problems in excess.

If you want to lose your stubborn belly fat, check out these strategic workouts and diet tips at Ab Exercise Workouts

Also, learn some of the best tricks to live healthy and enjoy life while also losing body fat at Healthy Fat Loss Tips

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Geary
http://EzineArticles.com/?Beware-of-Junk-Foods-Being-Promoted-As-Health-Food—HFCS-is-Not-Healthy&id=1496917

Filed Under: Health and Beauty

A New Twist on Family Movie Night

Posted by admin on October 6, 2008  |  No Comments

Family Movie Night

When I was growing up, every Friday was Family Night. We would make pizza, go rent a movie, and hang out and eat pizza, popcorn and soda all night (or at least until about 10 o’clock which seemed like all night to a 3rd grader!)

So of course, I started Family Night with my own kids. However, I quickly realized that by the time I got all three kids bundled up, in the car, and drove to the video store, battled them over what to pick, hoped they weren’t watching the previews of shows I would rather them not know about, and convince them that we really don’t need to spend $5 on a giant gummy snake, that I was pretty much too exhausted to enjoy family night!

Then, high tech came to the rescue! Enter “download a movie” websites! Woo Hoo! Now I can order pizza, sit at the computer, select some appropriate “choices” for my kids, and order the movie – to be downloaded to my PC all without the fights, distractions, r-rated trailers, or excessive candy temptations! And best of all – it doesn’t matter if the weather is cold, rainy, or whatever!

So, why not start a family night at your house, and try out one of these “download a movie” services! Order a pizza, sit back, and relax!

Get Net Movies

The Movie Downloads

Filed Under: Family and Parenting