Heated battles have raged across the world’s dinner tables for about as long as anyone can remember. The topic of this unending debate? Vegetables.

Despite their most valiant efforts many parents still struggle with their kids about eating their nightly serving of greens. Visiting your local farmers markets, fresher produce and more interesting/flavorful recipes have been helping to slowly turn the tide, but arming yourself with a little extra knowledge before going into battle doesn’t usually hurt either.

According to newly presented research, eating green vegetables may be an even better way to our bodies healthy than we could have possibly guessed. In addition to being a well-known source of vitamins, minerals, and essential nutrients, not to mention both soluble and insoluble dietary fiber, it seems that green vegetables of all types are also a key source of specialized chemical signals that our immune systems use to self-communicate.

Continue reading: “Study: Leafy Green Vegetables May Boost Your Immune Defenses”

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Kefir, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is a healthy and delicious cultured milk drink, similar to yogurt, that has been enjoyed throughout Russia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and even certain parts of Asia for centuries. Much of the Western world, however, is just now beginning to discover the many benefits of this amazing drink.

Depending on their area of origin, most traditional recipes call for either cow or goat’s milk to be used as a base, for the kefir cultures to ferment. Fortunately though for vegans and people who are sensitive to dairy, they also work quite well with coconut milk.

Like yogurt and other probiotic foods, kefir that generally requires a starter culture of some kind. Because each culture is a unique living ecosystem, and reacts differently to different environmental factors, the subtle differences between one batch and the next can be quite considerable.

Continue reading: “How to Make Organic Coconut Milk Kefir”

New findings presented by Finnish researchers at the University of Turku further supports the potential benefits of probiotics during the first months of life, particularly with regards to respiratory health.

The scientists claim a near 30 percent reduction in respiratory illness among infants whose diets were supplemented daily with the probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis, subspecies BB-12, as compared to those in their control group.

They also used the study as an opportunity to further test a new form of slow-delivery medical pacifier designed to administer more accurate dosages of medicine to very young children. The pacifiers have a small opening in their backplate for the storage of drugs. In the case of this study, tablets of the BB-12 probiotic.

Continue reading: “Study: Probiotics May Help Protect Infants From Respiratory Illness”

What Is Xylanase?

Xylanase (pronounced zy-lan-ase) is an naturally-occurring enzyme commonly found in microbes and fungi that can play a vital role in human digestion. Scientifically speaking, it is an enzyme that breaks down a type of fiber known as hemicellulose by converting one of its components (beta 1,4 xylan) into a simple sugar called xylose.

This is very useful for these smaller organisms since it allows them to extract nutrients from vegetable matter that has lots of fiber. These same properties also make xylanase commercially important because it is able to break down plant fiber for a variety of uses from dough conditioning to papermaking.

It also can break down hemicellulose in your digestive tract, helping you to liberate more plant nutrients from vegetables with a high fiber content and, hopefully, preventing some of the gas or digestive discomfort that is often associated with fibrous veggies, grains, and legumes.

Continue reading: “The Health Benefits of Xylanase”

While cow’s milk remains one of America’s most common daily drinks, it is interesting to note that it may also be the reason why many Americans experience gas, bloating, mucous and other forms of indigestion.

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Moreover, in a world where the common cow is pumped full of growth hormones, antibiotics, GMO feed, vaccinations and exposed to toxic conditions, it is no wonder that many humans experience negative effects of consuming pasteurized cow milk.

Goat’s milk is a much healthier alternative, especially if it is consumed raw and from a good organic source. The most common form of milk used on a global scale, it is estimated that around three fourths of the milk consumed worldwide comes from goats, not cows. And most of the people drinking this milk are not fat and do not have allergies or digestive complaints.

Continue reading: “Is goat milk better than cow milk? Here’s a list of health benefits”