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 Healthiest People in The World
The Seven healthiest populations.


You’re probably making a few guesses and probably wonder why places that seem scarcely habitable are actually healthy.
The first on the list is no surprise;

1. Iceland
A small conscious population is why Iceland is one of the least polluted countries in the world. The cold weather drives people indoors to gyms. They spend more time at the gym than any other population. Life expectancy is 72 for men and 74 for women, and one of the lowest infant mortality rates at 2 deaths per 1,000 babies.

2. Japan


This is a nation where people live in full health the longest. This is due to diet. Anyone who is familiar with Japanese food and the culture now how important the preparation of food. A great deal of fish, soy, seaweed and green tea is consumed in beautifully arranged meals.

3. Sweden
The government promote a healthy way of life. The population spends a great deal of time outside. A lot of fish and omega fatty acids are eaten. Swedes use little oil, instead they poach, ferment, smoke, and dry their food.

4. Okinawa
Although Okinawa is part of Japan, it is considered to have the healthiest people on Earth. Approximately 50 per 100,000 people live to be 100. Many of them to 110. They are healthy, happy, eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, tofu and seaweed, participate in rigorous daily activity and relatively low stress.

5. New Zealand
As with Iceland, a lower population and lack of pollution make New Zealand a very healthy place. New Zealanders love outdoor activities and it is an easy place to embrace a fit lifestyle. There’s an abundance of healthy whole foods, a lot of seafood and local organic fruits and vegetables.

6. Sardinia
Sardinia is an autonomous region of Italy which has a very large population of centenarians. With a sense of family and community most of the elderly live with their families. The men are usually shepherds, walk about 5 miles per day and eat a lot of whole grain flatbread, fava beans, tomatoes, greens, garlic, various fruits, olive oil and pecorino cheese.


7. Finland
Finland was plagued with one of the highest death rates from heart disease just 30 years ago. A conscious polity to cut down on smoking, adopt a healthy life style and diet has worked wonders.
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What do these countries have in common? Most lack pollution, are somewhat underpopulated, very little meat is eaten if ever, and a lot of fruits and vegetables are consumed. There is good balance between work/play and efforts are made to cut stress.


http://healthmad.com/aging/healthies...#ixzz1UUcKRvlh

 The Black Fruits

The black pigment is a result of a combination of several pigments that together absorb all colors. This is how these ten fruits get their dark coloring. The color refers to either the skin or flesh.


Black Currant


Vibrant Spirit/Flickr
Scientific Name: Ribes nigrum
Origin: native to central and northern Europe and northern Asia
Description: 1 cm diameter;glossy, very dark purple, almost black
Taste: very sweet and sharp;lightly flowery fragrance with pungent, almost musky flavour
Mulberry

Scientific Name: Morus

Origin: majority of the species are native to Asia
Description: a collective fruit, 2–3 cm (0.79–1.2 in) long; skin starts white or green to pale yellow (with pink edges) which turns red when they start to ripen then becomes dark purple to black
Taste: tart, sweetandjuicy
Other Colors: white, pink and red
Java Plum


Scientific Name: Syzygium cumini
Origin: Native to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Indonesia.
Common Names: java plum, duhat, black plum, jambul, Portuguese plum
Description: oblong, ovoid shaped; skin coloring starts green and turns pink as it begins to ripen then becomes deep red to black when fully ripe; purple colored flesh
Taste: sweet, mildly sour with dry puckering mouthfeel (astringent) flavor; it leaves the tongue a purple coloring
Other Colors: white
Black Olives


Scientific Name: Olea europaea
Origin: native to the Meditteranean, Asia and Africa
Description: 1–2.5 centimetres (0.39–0.98 in) long; The difference between green and black olives are the maturity. Unripe olives are green, while ripe olives are black.
Taste: uncured olives are intensely bitter
Other Colors: green
Black Mission Figs

Scientific Name: Ficus carica“Mission”
Common Names: mission fig, black mission and franciscana
Description: tear-drop shaped, thick black skin and reddish flesh; skin often cracks when ripe
Taste: lusciously sweet; crunchy seeds
Other Colors: dark purple
Black Grapes

 Refracted Moments/Flickr
Scientific Name: Vitis
Description: a prolate spheroid fruit with semi-transluscent flesh covered with smooth skin
Taste: crunchy, dry, sweet and tart flavor
Other Colors: green, yellow, orange, pink, dark blue or crimson
Blackberries

Scientific Name: Rubus fruticosus

Origin: nativethroughout the temperate northern hemisphere and South America
Description: a very dark purple aggregate fruit with smooth fragile skin and greenish-white core; young berries are red and hard which turns black and shiny when they ripen
Taste: wine-like; sweet

Black Sapote
Scientific Name: Diospyros digyna
Origin: a black persimmon native to eastern Mexico and Central America
Common Names: zapote prieto, chocolate pudding fruit
Description: 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in) in diameter; looks like a medium-sized tomato; the olive skin is inedible, turns deep yellow-green when ripe; the ripe pulp has a color similar to chocolate pudding
Taste: sweet, reminiscent of chocolate pudding
Black Raspberries

 
quinn.anya/Flickr
Scientific Name: Rubus occidentalis
Origin: eastern North America
Description: round-shaped druplets with hollow core; 12-15 cm in diameter with very dark purple-black fruits
Taste: sweet; better tasting than red raspberries
Other Colors: yellow
Black Cherries





Scientific Name: Prunus serotina
Origin: native to eastern North America and south Eastern United States
Common Names: rum cherry, mountain black cherryandwild black cherry
Description: 1 cm in diameter, shiny, smooth and globular; starts green then turns red and becomes black when ripe


http://scienceray.com/biology/the-bl...#ixzz1UUaZVgRd

The Colorful Members of The Melon Family

The members of the melon family comes in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Here are some of them.


We typically know melons as crunchy fruits that are thirst-quenching and delicious. The two best known being watermelon and cantaloupe, you know that they are always eaten as is, added in fruit salads or used in cold refreshments. But did you know that they have family members that are prepared as vegetables? Here are some of the well-known fruits that are members of the melon family.

Horned Melon

The Horned melon (Cucumis metuliferus) is a bizarre-looking, oval fruit with spiky yellow-orange skin, lime green jelly-like flesh and big seeds. The flavor is described as a mix between bananas, cucumbers and lemons. It is native to Africa and is also commonly called by various names including kiwano, jelly melon, hedged gourd, English tomato and melano. For obvious reasons, it is nicknamed blowfish fruit in the southeastern United States.

Honeydew Melon



The honeydew melon is one of the cultivars of muskmelon (Cucumis melo) under the C. melo inodorus group. It has a greenish to yellow smooth rind and thick, juicy and sweet, pale green flesh.
Watermelon

   
Being one of the fruits with the highest water content is what makes watermelons (Citrullus lanatus) a summer favorite. Although they are typically known for their eye-catching red-colored flesh, their more than a thousand varieties include white, yellow, orange and pink ones.
Cantaloupe

   
The cantaloupe refers to any orange-fleshed melon under the Cucumis melo group. They originated in India and Africa and were originally cultivated by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. The cantaloupes are one of the fruits with the highest vitamin A content in the form of beta-carotene.
Piel de Sapo

   
This melon with a green-blotched skin originated from Spain. Do you know what its name means? It translates as “toad skin,” because that’s exactly what its rind looks like. The flesh of the Piel de Sapo is described as having the sweet smell of the cantaloupe and the taste of honeydew melon.

Cucumber

   This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 540x405.

Although the cucumber (Cucumis sativus) is one of the most widely consumed fruit, many people didn’t know that it is originally from India and that it belongs to the genus Cucumis together with the cantaloupe, honeydew and muskmelon. The cucumber has three main varieties and hundreds of cultivars so do don’t be surprised if you come across with smooth-skinned or those that are round-shaped.

Winter Melon

While it’s other family members can be eaten straight or are favorite ingredient in fruit salads, the winter melon, also known as white gourd, ash gourd, and fuzzy melon is eaten as a vegetable. It is prepared as a main ingredient in soups; it can also be made into sweets, curries and is widely marketed as tea in parts of Southeast Asia. It is added in mooncake for the annual Moon Festival in China and Taiwan. In the Philippines, it is known as kundol.
Bitter Melon

   

Here’s the most far out member of the melon family. The bitter melon, or bitter gourd is known as one of the bitterest fruits. It also comes in a variety of shapes and sizes and bitterness. Depending on variety, they have white to green skin with jagged to warty surface. It has so many culinary uses in South Asia; there’s even a softdrink made from it. The fruit and the leaves are also widely used in Asian and African traditional medicine.

Read more: http://gomestic.com

World's Healthiest Foods: Kimchi (Korea)


Koreans eat so much of this super-spicy condiment (40 pounds of it per person each year) that natives say “kimchi” instead of “cheese” when getting their pictures taken.

Koreans eat so much of this super-spicy condiment (40 pounds of it per person each year) that natives say “kimchi” instead of “cheese” when getting their pictures taken. The reddish fermented cabbage (and sometimes radish) dish—made with a mix of garlic, salt, vinegar, chile peppers, and other spices—is served at every meal, either alone or mixed with rice or noodles. And it’s part of a high-fiber, low-fat diet that has kept obesity at bay in Korea. Kimchi also is used in everything from soups to pancakes, and as a topping on pizza and burgers.

Why to try it: Kimchi (or kimchee) is loaded with vitamins A, B, and C, but its biggest benefit may be in its “healthy bacteria” called lactobacilli, found in fermented foods like kimchi and yogurt. This good bacteria helps with digestion, plus it seems to help stop and even prevent yeast infections, according to a recent study. And more good news: Some studies show fermented cabbage has compounds that may prevent the growth of cancer.

What to do with it: There’s no need to make your own; just pick it up in the refrigerated section of your grocery store or an Asian market for around $4 per 32-ounce jar (Sunja’s is one popular brand). You can wake up your morning by scrambling eggs with kimchi, diced tomatoes, and mushrooms. Use it as a wrap filling or to top a baked potato. Or try Spicy Beef and Kimchi Stew, which won our test kitchen’s top rating.

http://www.health.com

Vitamin D May Protect Against Common Cold


MONDAY, Feb. 23, 2009 (Health.com) — Vitamin D may protect people—especially those with asthma and other chronic lung conditions—from colds and other respiratory tract infections, according to the largest study to date to look at the link.

Unlike with other vitamins, a deficiency of vitamin D (which is known as the sunshine vitamin because sun exposure triggers production in the body) is quite common in the United States—particularly in winter. At least 50% of people in the new study, which included nearly 19,000 people 12 and older, had levels that suggested less-than-optimal protection against respiratory tract infections, according to the report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“People think that if they have a good, balanced diet that they will get enough vitamin D, and that’s actually not true,” says Michal Melamed, MD, an assistant professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “Unless you eat a lot of fish and drink a lot of milk, you can’t get enough vitamin D from diet.”

In the study, Adit Ginde, MD, of the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, and colleagues at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston, found that people who had low blood levels of vitamin D were more likely to report having had a recent cold than those with higher amounts. What’s more, the risk of a recent cold or other respiratory infection seemed to rise as vitamin D levels dropped.

Overall, 24% of people with the lowest levels (under 10 ng/ml) had had a recent cold, compared with 20% of those with slightly higher levels (10 to 29 ng/ml) and 17% of those with the highest levels (30 ng/ml). The link was even stronger in people with asthma, who had about six-fold greater risk of colds with low vitamin D, and in those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, who had a two- to three-fold greater risk.

health.com

Never Get Sick: Nasal Washing Sounds Gross, but It Works!



From Health magazine

After suffering through 10 years of sinus infections (and their accompanying face pain, clogged passages, and two to three rounds of antibiotics per infection), I was ready to try anything—even the all-natural neti pot that my doctor recommended. Instructions: Fill with warm water and add a smidgen of salt, then tilt head with left nostril over sink and pour mixture into right nostril; water mixture and a lot of snot will exit through the left side.

I soon started watering my nose like it was a geranium—and coughing like an old man. But after a few days, I was clearing out congestion before it had a chance to set up camp in my sinuses.

Docs are on board with nasal irrigation: University of Michigan researchers have found that it’s much more effective than saline sprays for limiting the severity and frequency of sinus problems.

Since I got my neti, I haven’t had a single sinus infection or even a bad cold. Downsides? A little after-use drainage (i.e., nose rain). But blowing your nose after each treatment limits sudden downpours.


health.com

Going out under the sun???   Wear Protective Sunglasses

You want to protect your eyes from the sun much like you would protect your skin from the sun with SPF and UV protection.  The sun's damaging rays can lead to cataracts and macular degeneration over time if they aren't protected with sunglasses.  This is because UV bands of light from the sun penetrate the retina leading to eye damage.  When selecting protective sunglasses avoid ones that are marked as cosmetic and select ones that are designated as having 99% or 100% UV protection.

health.com