Spinach and Tomato Frittata

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Ingredients

• 6 large (50 grams each) eggs
• 1/4 cup (60 grams) skim (1%) milk
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, divided
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/2 small (35 grams) red onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 1 (5-ounce or 140 grams) container spinach leaves
• 12 cherry tomatoes (4 ounces or 205 grams) cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 cup (1 ounce or 28 grams) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Directions

1. Place oven rack in upper third of oven, about 10 inches away from heat; preheat broiler.
2. Whisk together eggs, milk, salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Set aside.
3. Heat oil in a 10-inch ovenproof nonstick skillet (such as cast iron) over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring often, 3 or until tender. Stir in spinach; cover and cook, tossing occasionally with tongs, 2 minutes or until wilted.
4. Pour egg mixture over spinach mixture. Fold gently with a rubber spatula to combine. Sprinkle top with tomatoes. Cook over medium heat for 4 minutes or until edges begin to set and bottom is cooked. Place in oven.
5. Broil 3 minutes until frittata is golden brown and center is set.  Remove from oven; sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and remaining 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Broil 1 minute or until cheese melts.
6. Cut into 6 (3 1/2-inch) wedges (remember handle will be hot when serving). Serve immediately.

Source: Spinach & Tomato Frittata – MyFitnessPal

Image Credit: Spinach & Tomato Frittata

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One-Pan Chicken and Roasted Veggies

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Ingredients

• 1 pound brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
• 1 pound butternut squash, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 1 lemon, thinly sliced
• 3 large garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon ground pepper
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• 4 chicken thighs (bone-in or boneless)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground paprika
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 4 fresh sage leaves, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Combine the Brussels sprouts, squash, onion, lemon slices and minced garlic in a large bowl, add 2 tablespoons of oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and nutmeg and toss to combine. Spread veggie mixture onto a large baking sheet.
2. Combine 2 tablespoons olive oil, apple cider vinegar, fennel seeds, red pepper, paprika, garlic powder, sea salt, pepper and sage in a small bowl. Coat chicken with the marinade and arrange chicken on top of the Brussels sprouts and squash mixture. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until both the veggies and chicken are cooked through. Portion onto plates, squeeze any remaining juice from the lemon over each serving and enjoy!

Source: One-Pan Chicken & Roasted Veggies – MyFitnessPal 

Image Credit: One-Pan Chicken & Roasted Veggies

 

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Facts About The Superfood “Lucuma”

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You may have heard about most of the South American superfoods such as chia, acai, quinoa, and maca. But these are not the only superfoods available to humankind. Have you heard of lucuma, the latest superfood addition to your diet? If you are wondering why lucuma is a great new superfood, keep on reading this article.

Why Lucuma Is A Great New Superfood?

Lucuma is a fruit. It is quite similar to a cross between a sweet potato and an avocado. Lucuma is native to South America – Peru to be specific. The fruit has been called “Incan Gold,” and is used in milkshakes, ice creams, dulce de leche desserts, and juices in Peru and Chile. The Incans cherished this fruit and referred to the lucuma tree as the “tree of life.”

What Does Lucuma Taste Like?

It has a unique flavour which is quite similar to a mix of maple or caramel with a sweet potato. 

What Makes The Fruit So Healthy?

The fruit can be used as a sweetener as a fruit or in powdered form. It comes with a low glycemic index – two grams of natural sugar for every eleven grams of carbohydrates to be precise. This is great news for people who are on a low GI diet or trying to lose weight. It is absolutely packed with important antioxidants, beta-carotene, zinc, fibre, iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and niacin (vitamin B3). Vitamin B3 is a tough vitamin to find outside of meats, and it helps combat depression and anxiety. This is what makes lucuma such an important superfood. It is a great source for vegans or vegetarians.

Since lucuma is pretty new to the scene, not so much of research has been done as yet. There is no FDA confirmation for this food yet. But the Peruvians and Incans have been using this superfood for centuries for its medicinal and nutritional properties. A 2010 study confirmed that lucuma contains anti-inflammatory properties which can help with skin regeneration. Hence, it may have greater use in the skin care industry in the future. One more important thing is, the superfood is gluten free.

How Do You Eat It?

You may not find this superfood outside of South America. The delicate nature of the fruit makes it difficult to export. You can find it is powdered form in the United States. You can incorporate the superfood into your diet as a nutritional supplement. It can also be used as a natural sweetener and sugar substitute. It is also used for anything from custards, ice creams, cakes or added to your favourite smoothies, juices, and protein shakes. Now you may understand why lucuma is a great new superfood.

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Why Is Vitamin B Important for Fit Men

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The Importance Of Vitamin B cannot be neglected if you want to increase your health and fitness in the long run. Vitamin B12 deficiency is responsible for many conditions such as cognitive decline, depression, schizophrenia, and possibly autism which was revealed in a recent study. If you are in your twenties or thirties, you may probably not worry too much about your vitamin intake. This is quite OK. In fact, if you don’t feel any negative side effects, you have nothing to be concerned about at all. But vitamin B12 is essential for good health. It is considered one of the most dangerous and silent deficiencies out there. B12 is vital for dopamine stimulation which is a pleasure producing hormone in your brain. This hormone is crucial for combating depression as well as boosting your mood. It can also stave off cardiovascular disease, keep your nerves and blood cells healthy. and prevent neurocognitive disorders. There is a study published in the Journal Plus One which states that vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and autism.

In this study, the researchers observed the brains of more than sixty-odd deceased men and women between the ages of 19-weeks to 80-years. They also included 12 young individuals with autism and 9 middle-aged individuals with schizophrenia in this study. The results showed that the older individuals contained the lowest levels of B12 in their brains compared to the youngest members of the group. Their B12 levels were exactly 10-times lower.

The most interesting thing was, young people with autism and middle-aged individuals with schizophrenia had only one-third of the required vitamin b12 levels compared to healthy individuals of the same ages. The individuals who had autism and were under 10-years old had similar levels of B12 similar to the levels found in a 57-year old adult. The individuals with schizophrenia between the ages of 36-49 years had similar levels of vitamin B12 to those found in a 72-year old person. This was reported in Science Line recently. Although it is not 100% clear what these low levels imply, it is clear that vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to the brain’s inability to establish important neural connections between regions of the brain. This is why the importance of vitamin B cannot be underestimated in any way.

The daily dosage of vitamin B12 depends on the age of the individual. You can start by adding certain food items to your diets such as fresh meat, fish, and dairy foods. Vegetarians can meet their vitamin B12 needs through the consumption of fortified breakfast cereals. Also, fermented beans and vegetables are a good source of B12. It is best that you talk to your doctor to learn the importance of vitamin B and ask for alternative options of vitamin B12.

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Train Your Brachialis Properly

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If you are wondering “how to properly train your brachialis,” you have come to the right place. Add size to your arms by training your brachialis muscles. Although no one will say that a person has some humongous brachialis muscles, you should not neglect this critical arm muscle. This muscle is located deep beneath the biceps. Training the brachialis muscle will help push your biceps that much further. When developed properly, the brachialis muscle will add a nice mountain of muscle between your biceps and triceps. This makes your arm look much more impressive. The dumbbell and hammer curl are some of the best exercises for developing the brachialis muscle.

Dig Deep Bicep Workout –

• Barbell Curls – Three sets, About six to ten reps
• Dumbbell Concentration Curls – Three sets, About eight to twelve reps
• Dumbbell Hammer Curls – Three set, About ten to fifteen reps
• Incline Dumbbell Curls – Three sets, About eight to twelve reps

Hammer Curl Alternatives –

When You Need To Go Deep?

The brachialis is such a strong flexor of your elbows. Hence, you need to perform hammer curls at the end of your bicep workouts. Performing these workouts earlier can limit the growth of your biceps. If the brachialis muscle is fatigued, you may fail on bicep exercises.

Form And Function –

The brachialis muscle is located on the front and outside of your arm, just beneath the biceps. It is attached to the lower part of the humerus or upper arm bone. It crosses the elbow joint to attach to the ulna or forearm bone. The brachialis helps flex the arm, similar to performing hammer curls and standard curls.

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A Major Stride In Medicine As Doctors Are Now 3D Printing Living Body Parts

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Science has again taken a giant leap for mankind as evidence shows that doctors are now 3D printing living body parts in the field of regenerative medicine.

Researchers who discovered this breakthrough, as published recently in Nature Biotechnology, successfully implanted normal and fully-functional sections of cartilage, muscle and bone on animal test subjects.

This means that there is great hope in the future of making use of these living tissues to repair damaged parts of the body like a scarred heart muscle, a damaged ear or jaw or even possibly a vital organ.

But scientists are still facing a big hurdle in trying to keep cells alive especially those that are thicker than 0.2 millimetres- as the cell tissues become starved of essential oxygen and nutrients to keep them alive.

A research team at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has developed a new process that 3D prints tissues that are printed with thousands of micro channels to allow essential nutrients to nourish the cell tissue to keep it alive.

Named as the Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System (ITOP) – the contraption begins with a bio-degradable plastic- based material to form the structure of the body part and combines a water-based gel that contains the living cells to stimulate growth.

This process also allows nerves and blood vessels to grow in the implants as it creates an ideal environment to sustain normal cell regeneration and growth.

Close at the heels of this breakthrough in a similar field of science is the development of the Bio Assembly Tool (BAT) by the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute (CII) in Louisville, Kentucky.

A select team of researchers, doctors, technicians and students of the institute are going the arduous process of 3d bioprinting of a working human heart, where a part of this work is centered on a pioneering breakthrough in stem cell printing that could prove to give hope for regenerative science especially in the repair or replacement of damaged vital human organs, cells and tissues.

The scientific community is still divided on their views and opinions of these technological breakthroughs, primarily with ethical and moral principles that are centered on the use of stem cells and cloning processes, however, the developers agree that it could still remove doubts in the scientific communities once these are properly sorted out and explained.

But for now, many believe that there’s still a long way to go in perfecting this process which may soon prove to be the ray of hope for patients dealing with debilitating and complex injuries and illnesses, and now that doctors are now 3D printing living body parts, it may just be somewhere beyond the horizon within reach.

Source:  Doctors 3D-print ‘living’ body parts – BBC News

Image Credit: Doctors 3D-print ‘living’ body parts

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Has Man Unlocked The Brain’s Secrets In The Neuroscience of Creativity?

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How can a human organ with a size smaller than a football and made up of fatty tissues be able to hold the entire concept of humanity and allow man to go through big strides in knowing the secrets and mysteries of this world? The neuroscience of creativity hopes to help us understand brain functions in a more in depth manner.

Surely we cannot totally fathom the idea of what the human brain can achieve, like knowing the breakthroughs of tomorrow, the up and coming technologies that help make life easier or medical discoveries that provide solutions to health scourges responsible for the deaths of millions in the past.

Day by day we see the results of what our brains have achieved as we see the world continually evolving around us. We  do not only get to experience it simply by making life easier for us  day by day, but the brain is also responsible for the aesthetic and esoteric values of human creativity that wows us at every turn.

Neuroscience is the study of the human nervous system and a lot, if not all of it, is centred primarily on the study of the brain.

Of course, it is clearly understood that the brain controls the body’s involuntary and voluntary functions from the beating of the heart, the lifting of the arm, the body motion of running to the rationalization of ideas and concepts that allow us humans to make our life-changing decisions, successes and failures.

But one question still remains categorically unanswered. How does the brain function when it calls for creativity and what causes it to function that way?

We understand that neurons play an integral part in jumpstarting our brains to play a seamless rendition of a piano concerto or a symphony orchestra, but surely it is another story when the brain works to compose a musical piece or an award winning original painting.

As the human brain has evolved, so has creativity and although many scientists believe that creativity may not be worth its weight in gold for science, others still believe that it plays a crucial role in the study of the human brain.

It is a known fact that the creative process is primarily governed by two stages, first which is the creation of a work of art or a concept, where experimentation takes place in the form of rendering or actualization and the second deals with execution that allows the concept or artwork to take on its final form.

The neuroscience of creativity aims to provide answers to these questions as it progressively studies the functions the different networks and regions of the human brain, how it interacts with the other brain network systems that result to man’s creative genius.

It still is a broad science that needs to be further explored, but a lot of experts and scientists have already made significant strides in the study of human creativity.

Man has only scratched the surface with the neuroscience of creativity and yes, we may have answered some questions, still we need to find more meaningful evidence to suggest the extent of findings that we have in unlocking the secrets of the human brain.

Source: The neuroscience of creativity – MNT 

Image Credit: The neuroscience of creativity

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