A BETTER BREAKFAST

   If you are wondering how to select a good breakfast before leaving for work or school, you may be thinking of a bowl of cold cereal.  But how many teaspoons of sugar are in the specified size of serving? The following tip is from a Seattle registered dietician and blogger, Andy Bellatt who says:  “Divide the grams listed on the label by four. That is 7.5 teaspoons per bowl for one supposedly healthy family favourite.”  How about playing it a little safer and stirring up some oatmeal instead and adding dried fruits like apricots, pears, prunes or raisins.  Soak raisins and other dried fruits the night before and the breakfast cereal tastes even better.  Blueberries are wonderful to include because of their benefits to the eyes.  Reading in poor light happens when the eyes’ core is not capturing the light well enough.  The “yellow spot” on the eye is called the macula and contains a high concentration of lutein that plays a central role in detection of visible light.  In Sweden, people utilize blueberries to keep their eyes strong.  Blue Berry Eyebright is the No l selling supplement in Scandinavia, and has been so for almost a decade and available at most pharmacies and health food stores.  Call 1-877-MY NORDIC (696-6734) or www.new nordic.ca.    

  A few grains of sea salt could be added to the hot cereal but remember that a high-salt diet could increase your stomach cancer risk by as much as 68 percent, as compared with a diet containing modest amounts of the mineral, according to a recent study.  Source:  Clinical Nutrition.

  Taking tea three times a day modestly lowers both blood pressure numbers, according to a recent study.  Ninety five regular tea drinkers were randomly assigned to drink either a standard black-tea drink or an identical-tasting beverage containing the same amount of caffeine.  After three months the tea drinkers’ systolic (the top number) and diastolic (the bottom number) readings had dipped an average of 2.7 and 2.3 mm Hg, respectively.  The faux-tea-drinkers readings were unchanged.  Source:  Archives of Internal Medicine.