Living Fully Nourished

Has you ever felt a little bit sleepy after eating a salad? Or lightly constipated when you eat a very large salad?
Lettuce contains a substance called lactucarium that “is known as lettuce opium because of its curative sedative and analgesic properties”, although it’s not an opium derivative.
“The chemical constituents of lactucarium that have been investigated for biological activity include lactucin and its derivatives lactucopicrin and 11β13-dihydrolactucin. Lactucin and lactucropicrin were found to have sedative activity in measurements of spontaneous movements of the mice.” (Wikipedia)
Not every person will feel the sedative effect of this substance; the sensitivity of every person is very different. But if you are a hyper sensitive person, and you react to food-drugs such as coffee, chocolate, tea, coke, spices, herbs, etc., then I recommend you to be careful with lettuce. Have salads preferably in the evening meals, and avoid lettuce if you have tendency to have  constipation. But also, if you are highly sensitive, you may use it as a medicine as an analgesic!



 

When its cold outside we prefer to eat warm or hot food, such as soup, potaje, stew, legumes and chestnuts in Spain; or fondue, raclette and croûte in the Swiss alpine villages. But, are these the best dishes to consume in winter?



 

The avocado is a unique fruit because of its high fat content and low sugar levels. It has a high nutritional value, and is very much appreciated by vegetarians due to its high content of high quality protein and fat, in addition to vitamins, minerals and fiber.
This is why avocado is considered one of the healthiest foods, and it is even considered a superfood.

Nowadays, concern about antibiotic resistance seems to be growing: antibiotics are losing their effectiveness due to new kinds of super-resistant bacteria. This phenomenon exists because doctors prescribe antibiotics too often.
In order to avoid this prescription overuse, instead of antibiotics, natural antibiotics are recommended by alternative medicine as a safe alternative. Is it really possible to have completely side effect free antibiotics that don’t increase the bacterial resistance?
Usually, a person consumes on a daily basis several products that contain antibiotics as medicine, or have antibiotic properties. Are we unaware of being subject to a daily antibiotic therapy?
In this article we will address the problems that are related to the intake of natural and conventional antibiotics as well as food with antibiotic properties.
 

Nuts and seeds have many nutritional benefits. They contain great amounts of minerals and vitamins and also valuable proteins and essential fatty acids. But many people are prone to allergies or intolerances to nuts and seeds.
This article discusses the nutritional characteristics of nuts and seeds, the reason why they are so allergenic and gives some recommendations for their consumption.