Add Fruit to Your Burger for a Healthier Meal

At this weekend’s BBQ, remember to focus on your health too

By Elena Gorgan, Life & Style Editor
22nd of May 2009, 18:20 GMT



Burgers with fruits: an unlikely, but extremely tasty and healthy combination
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Barbeques are often seen as these “guilty” events where everyone stuffs themselves with meat and beer and then has to make up for it for the following week. Far from being like this, health experts tell us that not only can we enjoy a regular burger (not the veggie type that often pales in comparison, according to many), but we can even “upgrade” it to taste better and be much healthier.

The idea is simple, nutritionists point out, and all we have to do is simply add some fruits on top of our grilled meat, whichever that may be. Of course, just any fruit won’t do the trick, since we have to find the kind that goes with our burger – but the list of recipes available is practically endless so that should hardly be a problem. There is one more thing we should also consider beforehand, namely that we must strive to go beyond our food-related prejudices and not judge until we have tasted one of these burgers, even if the combinations strike us as odd at first.

For instance, off the top of one’s head, there are at least four ideal combinations for burgers with fruit. Oprah Winfrey, the Queen of Television herself, was once speaking very highly of a recipe of burger with apples, claiming it was the best she had ever had. Granted, no one should take her word for it but, for a woman who is always careful about what she eats, Oprah does seem very reliable when it comes to making recommendations for healthy and tasty meals.

Then there’s the burger with cherries. According to nutritionists, cherries make the burger juicier, as well as a bit tarter, which, in turn, should give it more bite – pun intended. At the same time, cherries “slow meat spoilage and help prevent the growth of HAAs (carcinogens formed during grilling),” as health experts point out, which means they’re both extremely tasty and healthy. Blueberry burgers are also an excellent idea for this weekend’s barbeque, since they “add moisture to lean ground beef, but keep the taste neutral,” which means we still have complete liberty as to what to add on top of them.

Last but not least, pineapple burgers come with a special “Hawaiian sweet-and-savory flavor,” which highly recommends them as the most tasty burger recipe this weekend. The bottom line is that we should at least try the burgers with fruit before discarding them altogether. And what better way to do so than this weekend at the family BBQ or some grill party?

Add Tabasco to Your Meal to Burn More Calories

Study shows capsaicin boosts metabolic rate

By Elena Gorgan, Life & Style Editor
2nd of June 2009, 19:20 GMT


5g of Tabasco sauce boosts the metabolic rate by 15-20%, recent study reveals
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Spices are usually not recommended with diets or, for that matter, to anyone whose main concern is weight maintenance. However, there is one such condiment that can be added to meals and that, besides making it tastier, also helps burn more calories by boosting the metabolic rate. A recent study indicates Tabasco can do all this – but that’s not to say we should start pouring it on everything.

The study in question, although relatively small and, therefore, not extremely reliable, seems to hint that adding the spicy sauce to a meal can actually burn more calories. However, should we add it to foods that already have a high fat content, such as French fries or other type of fast food and takeout, it will not tip the balance towards weight loss no matter how much condiment we add, researchers point out. For Tabasco to actually work even a bit, our overall diet has to be a healthy and balanced one.

“Perhaps more interesting is the research that has already been carried out on small numbers of volunteers at Oxford Brookes University, which shows that 5g of Tabasco sauce eaten with a meal can raise your metabolic rate (the speed at which you burn calories) by between 15 per cent and 20 per cent for up to two hours after eating. In this instance, it is caused by the super-nutrient capsaicin, which is present in the chillies. But to achieve any lasting effect you would have to be prepared to add Tabasco sauce to every meal, which is not very practical.” Times Online writes in a recent piece on the conclusions of the study.

Naturally, no one can have Tabasco with every meal and not expect some more or less unpleasant side-effects, so whether the findings of this recent study have any real importance in terms of our diet is yet to be established. Still, previous research has also highlighted the many benefits of capsaicin and cayenne pepper in general, so perhaps a future study will manage to incorporate all this into one major conclusion applicable in real life.

As we were telling you a while back, capsaicin is known to lower blood pressure and to ease pain (alleviates twinges in the lower back and with chronic arthritis). Cayenne pepper is also an important ally in the fight against disease, so including it – to whatever extent it is possible for us – in our daily eating routine is highly recommended at this point.

Coffe vs Alzheimer

Using Coffee to combat alzheimer's memory

By Tudor Vieru, Science Editor
6th of July 2009, 19:34 GMT

Experts from the University of South Florida, Alzheimer's Disease Research Center have determined in a new study conducted on unsuspecting mice that the memory impairment brought forth by Alzheimer's disease can be counteracted with the equivalent of five cups of coffee per day. In their experiments, the researchers gave mice specifically bred to develop the disease doses of caffeine, which allowed the rodents to regain access to their memories.

The team also managed to demonstrate that the young mice of the same genetic traits that were given caffeine since early adulthood also failed to exhibit the symptoms regularly associated with the disease, which means that coffee could also play a role in preventing the onset of the disease altogether. Details of this line of research were published yesterday (July 5) in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. In older specimens, the treatment significantly reduce the levels of proteins regularly associated with the neurodegenerative disease.

“The new findings provide evidence that caffeine could be a viable 'treatment' for established Alzheimer's disease, and not simply a protective strategy. That's important because caffeine is a safe drug for most people, it easily enters the brain, and it appears to directly affect the disease process,” explains ADRC neuroscientist Gary Arendash, PhD, the lead author of the new study and an expert with the University of South Florida. Study investigator Huntington Potter, PhD, who is also the director of Florida ADRC, says that the team plans to move for starting human trails as soon as possible.

The team primarily wants to test the coffee treatment on seniors with early signs of the disease, and preliminary results are encouraging. They've already determined that, in healthy seniors, caffeine has the same effects on the blood levels of β-amyloid as it does in mouse models.

“These are some of the most promising Alzheimer's mouse experiments ever done showing that caffeine rapidly reduces beta amyloid protein in the blood, an effect that is mirrored in the brain, and this reduction is linked to cognitive benefit. Our goal is to obtain the funding needed to translate the therapeutic discoveries in mice into well-designed clinical trials,” Potter explains.

Arendash also underlined the fact that the new study was conducted under highly-controlled circumstances, and that the effects of caffeine were clearly separated from other health factors, such as diet and regular exercise. The interest that the team took in the drug came after a Portuguese study, made several years ago, showed that people who consumed less coffee over two decades were more likely than others to develop neurodegenerative diseases.

“This suggests that caffeine will not increase memory performance above normal levels. Rather, it appears to benefit those destined to develop Alzheimer's disease,” the expert concludes.