Foods Can Help You Manage Your High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure, also known as hypertension is a condition where the pressure of the body in the arteries is always high. Studies have been made and the results have put some of the common foods as the best and easiest ways that can be used in the management of hypertension. Everyone is in more risk of developing hypertension as they age. Prevention can be through a balanced organic diet, regular exercise, avoiding too much salt, tobacco and alcohol.

Using food as the alternative medication is the best approach towards the management illnesses without risking your heath. The researchers have recommended plant based foods and below are some of these foods and their role in fighting high blood pressure:

1. Whole Grain Cereals

Whole-grain cereals have been found to greatly reduce chances of high blood pressure. Eating bran flakes, oat squares, shredded wheat or oatmeal regularly can help in the management of the condition. As an added benefit, oats are known to slow the build up of plaque in blood vessels which increases the pressure.

2 Beets

Beet juice contains nitrate which researchers have found contains the same effect as taking nitrate tablets. A glass of beet juice can effectively lower blood pressure and the good thing is that you can buy beets from your local grocer and make your own juice at home.

3. Berries

Berries are termed as being in the list of the most nutritional foods in the world in relation to the antioxidant capacity. Albeit all berries are great, the most recommended in management of high blood pressure are raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries since they all contain anthoicyanins which are compounds responsible for the protection against high blood pressure.

4. Potatoes

Some of the most important components in fighting high blood pressure are magnesium and potassium and potatoes have them. An increase in the intake of potatoes can boost the decrease of blood pressure by more than 10 percent. Magnesium is also important in improving immunity and lowering stress.

5. Cacao

For people who have hypertension, chocolate has been found to contain compounds that are essential in fighting the condition. Researchers have recommended the intake of one-ounce square of dark chocolate everyday. This is because dark chocolate contains flavonoids which are natural compounds responsible for blood vessels dilation. The dilation greatly reduces high blood pressure.

6. Broccoli

Broccoli is vitamin C, Magnesium, calcium, potassium, and fiber all rolled up into one. This combination provides all the necessary nutrients used by the body to fight high blood pressure. A cup of steamed broccoli will provide more than 200% of the vitamin C needed by the body on a daily basis. Broccoli is also good source of chromium which plays a major role in the regulation of blood sugar and insulin.

7. Celery

Celery has phthalides which is a phytochemical that relaxes muscles in the walls of the arteries. Relaxed muscles means there is more blood flowing at a manageable pressure and thus the plant can be a great part of the fight against hypertension.

8. Garlic

Thick blood is at a higher risk of hypertension. Garlic contains blood thinning compounds that enhance the lowering of blood pressure. When chopped, garlic also produces a compound that is antifungal and antibacterial which can help a great deal in fighting the illnesses that may be as a result of hypertension. An added property is that garlic can also help in lowering cholesterol in the body.

9. Black Beans

Legumes are great sources of proteins and the level found in them is quite unmatched. The combination of fiber and proteins is essential in lowering and maintaining blood pressure levels as well as reducing cholesterol in the blood. Black beans are sources of fiber and magnesium, which are great assets in fighting high blood pressure. The beans are also contain a folic acid type referred to as folate which plays a major role in lowering and managing blood pressure through relaxation of blood vessels and enhancing blood flow.

10. Dandelion

Dandelions have been used in curing multiple ailments in different cultures around the world. Dandelion is a natural diuretic and releases excess sodium without losing potassium. The sodium raises blood pressure but the potassium kicks in and regulates the pressure. The magnesium in the Dandelion is also important in the dissolving of clots in the vessels and stimulates nitric oxide production for relaxation of blood vessels thus facilitation better flow of blood.

11. Bananas

Bananas are not only among the sweetest fruits available, they are great in reducing heart disease and stroke risks. Bananas are high in potassium and sodium, two compounds that are crucial in the management of blood pressures in the body. They are easy to find and can be used in different ways such as smoothies and in fruit salads. Additionally, bananas are low in calories which will enable one to keep their weight in check.

12. Pumpkin seeds

Pumpkin seeds have been found to effectively reverse high blood pressure because of their high zinc value. Blood vessels can easily lose elasticity with the lack of zinc causing inflammation. For great results, the seeds should be sprouted raw and eaten as healthy snacks.

13. Ground Flax Seeds

Flax seeds in addition to fighting cholesterol which is one of the compounds responsible for high blood pressure and also have omega-3 fatty acids that prevent infections and inflammations.

14. Cashew Nuts

Nuts are full of important nutrients for the body such as fiber, potassium and iron. To be more specific, cashew nuts are good sources of copper and magnesium which are two important nutrients that assist in boosting immunity. The magnesium is responsible for the relaxation of muscles and nerves and the copper helps in the development of connective tissues. Another great choice of nuts that fight hypertension is Walnuts.

15. Apricots

When it comes to the management of high blood pressure, apricots are a power food. Dried apricots are good sources of soluble fiber that assist in boosting digestion and the prevention of constipation. Good digestion results in the proper absorption of all the essential nutrients that are utilized by the body in the maintenance of blood pressure that is good for your health.

Read more: http://eblogfa.com/health/15-foods-can-help-manage-high-blood-pressure#ixzz2xCzWqOPi

Insects: Masters of Disguise

To avoid becoming prey, insects use mimicry to blend into their surroundings.

Deroplatys trigonodera, a leaf-litter mantid, has taken on the look of a decomposing leaf on the forest floor.

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

When it comes to biology, mimicry is everywhere. Lions use camouflage to blend in with the savanna. Frogs use mimicry to match their green environment. Most famously, chameleons will even change color to blend in with their backgrounds. 

For their part, researchers have long been fascinated with mimicry, and for some contemporaries of Darwin like naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, it was mimicry and camouflage that helped convince them of the power of natural selection. Nature selects for successful traits: Insects that can blend in with their environments are less likely to be eaten and are able to pass on their genes-and their natural disguises-to future generations. (Related: "Photo Gallery: Masters of Undersea Camouflage.")

But according to a study released yesterday, it turns out that a certain type of leaf mimicry dates back much further than experts believed, to the time of the dinosaurs. (See "Stick Insects Have Mimicked Plants Since the Age of Dinosaurs.")

Cloak of Green

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Not only does this walking leaf insect (Phyllium giganteum) blend in perfectly with the colors and shapes of its environment, it also rocks back and forth when it walks to mimic a real leaf being blown by the wind.

A Perfect Blend

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

The lantern fly (Fulgora sp.) on the left is well camouflaged on the trunk of its host tree in Soberania National Park in Panama. In a defensive display, the lantern fly on the right flashes large eyespots on its wings to scare away hungry predators.

Pretty in Pink

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Look closely to find the walking flower mantis (Hymenopus coronatus). While some insects use their camouflage to hide among flowers, this orchid mantis may be mimicking parts of the orchid flower to attract prey. Its four walking legs look like flower petals.

Caterpillar Trickery

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

This green caterpillar (Tanaecia sp.) blends beautifully into its environment. The degree to which insects have developed camouflage has long fascinated scientists. In the words of renowned scientist E. O. Wilson, "Every kid has a bug period. I never grew out of mine."

Dead Leaf Walking

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Who wants to eat a dead leaf? Not most animals. The dead leaf butterfly(Kallima sp.) is aptly named for the color of its wings.

Becoming One With Its Environment

PHOTOGRAPH BY NICOLE WERBECK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

The lichen-colored katydid blends in perfectly with its lichen-encrusted host tree to hide from predation. What's more, this katydid eats the very lichen it is camouflaged to match.

Masters of Masquerade

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Walking stick insects (Lonchodes sp.) protect themselves in nature by resembling twigs and branches. To add to their disguise, they walk slowly to resemble branches swaying in the wind.

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Muhammad versus Jesus

Emotion versus Rational : A Bigot Idiot called Demond Tutu .. South Africa Emotional Coaster Wrecker

Naming the bigots, and shaming them

The apartheid Israel smear is back in the headlines. What, for instance, is Desmond Tutu playing at? Tutu is heralded as a leader in the global movement for morality and peace, but his visual sight and intellectual insight seem hallucinatory. He's not alone

It helps if you listen

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The biased bigots are out again with their attack on Israel during “the apartheid week” in the month of March. What is perpetually amazing is that people and organizations supposedly devoted to the ideals of humanism and humanitarianism such as the officials and members of various religious denominations, teachers, and students in institutions of higher education, and charitable organizations should be so full of hatred against one nation in the world, the Jewish State.

It is appropriate that they should be named and called to account for their prejudice, bias, hatred, and possible anti-Semitism.

Not surprisingly, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, a man never modest about his celebrity in parading his moral principles, associates himself in 2014 with “the objectives of the 10th international Israeli Apartheid Week.”

One could understand if he made specific detailed criticisms of Israeli actions or policies. Instead, he engages in over-the-top hyperbole:

“I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing in the Holy Land that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under Apartheid. I have witnessed the systematic humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children by members of the Israeli security forces.”

It is difficult to take this absurd statement seriously. Tutu is heralded as a leader in the global movement for morality and peace, but his visual sight and intellectual insight seem hallucinatory.

On the one hand, where are the “racially segregated roads” Tutu supposedly witnessed? Where is the systematic humiliation of Palestinian civilians taking place?

On the other hand, he is blind to the exodus of Christians from areas of the Holy Land controlled by Palestinians. He is equally blind to the small and diminishing Christian population in Nazareth. He does not see the honor killings by Muslims in the area.

He is unaware that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the number and proportion of Christians in the population has increased, and where Christianity can be freely and fully practiced.

One breathlessly awaits an apology from the Archbishop for his intemperate and inaccurate remarks, his referring to Israel as an “apartheid” state and for his support for the boycott of the Jewish State. One would also hope that students and faculty in the academic institutions of Ireland would expose themselves to accurate information about Israel, and then correct, if not necessarily apologize for, their present bigoted views.

In April 2013, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland became the first educational union in Europe to adopt a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

This action was followed on March 6, 2014 by the passage of a non-binding resolution at the NUI Galway Students Union endorsing the BDS campaign against the State of Israel. The resolution, carried by 64 per cent of the 3,013 valid votes, is the first one to be adopted by a student body in Ireland.

The faculty and students have violated principles of the academic process, succumbing to fallacious Palestinian propaganda. They have yet to be tested for their objective command of Middle Eastern affairs.

Mainstream Christian Churches have in recent years for varying, often unaccountable, reasons participated in the BDS movement as well as in continuing condemnations of Israel. In March 2014 the organization known as Christ at the Checkpoint, sponsored by the Bethlehem Bible College, held its third biennial conference in Bethlehem.

Its supposed objective is to discuss the role of the church in helping resolve “the conflict and bringing peace, justice, and equality to the Holy Land.” But its opportunities for direct information appeared limited to visits to Jerusalem and Hebron.

These visits were supposed to inform the participants of “some of the realities on the ground that are a direct challenge to peacemaking in the land and which set the context for some of the theological discussions.” One does not need to be a fly on the wall to understand that the discussions will be limited to alleged Israeli crimes and misdemeanors in the two municipalities visited.

In more dramatic fashion the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) on March 10, 2014 issued a call to boycott SodaStream because of its factory in Mishor Adumin, an industrial zone in the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumin.

Unfortunately for the Church, its timing was bad, and its decision appears foolish. Just a month earlier in February 2014 SodaStream products had been judged to be one of the 23 “Products of the Year” by Parade Magazine. The Church is probably unhappy that these 23 products are judged to be brands of truly superior innovation, and might reconsider its reactionary behavior in objecting to progress.

The Church, claiming to be working in the area of “Peace with Justice and International Affairs,” points out, as do so many of the organizations and individuals discriminating against Israel, that it is not supporting a boycott of products made in Israel, but only against Israel companies operating in “occupied Palestinian territories.”

This is a specious argument. The Church, like all those other anti-Israel and conceivably anti-Semitic groups and individuals, even when pretending to be “evenhanded” does not hesitate to decide on geopolitical issues by speaking of SodaStream’s “disregard of both international and workers’ rights laws, including those of Israel itself.”

It holds that the SodaStream factory in Mishor Adumin is reinforcing the “illegal settlements,” and thus violating international law.

Whatever the Church’s command of spiritual matters, its mastery of international law and workers’ rights is astonishingly uninformed. It is surprising to find the Church referring to international law about which its leaders are naive, if not intentionally distorting that law. 

But it is not surprising that its bias and prejudice are evident in that its concern with “Justice” seems confined to one country. In this the Church is hypocritical. In order to justify its boycott of Israel the United Methodist Church passed its resolution 6111 that reinforces its previous resolution 4011, providing guidelines for initiating or joining an economic boycott so that the body boycotted will cease from certain practices judged to be unjust. 

Whether or not such guidelines are held to be appropriate for a religious body, in effect they apply and are meant to apply only to Israel.

Even more compellingly, the United Method Church like Oxfam International and Amnesty International, and the list of other groups mentioned by the Church, including American Muslims for Palestine and the Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, is ignorant of the facts on the ground.

All these anti-Israeli bodies refer to Israeli settlements, including therefore the one in which SodaStream is located, not only as violating international law, but also as promoting systematic discrimination or supporting ongoing military occupation.

Contrary to this mistaken point of view, the SodaStream factory these groups are targeting is one that is well known for its socially conscious employment practices. More than 900 Palestinians work there, earning about $1,200 a month, which is more than double the regular wages paid by Palestinians in the West Bank area.

They also receive pensions and medical insurance. The voice of sanity comes from the courageous Scarlett Johansson who after confronting and not yielding to the bias and bigotry of Oxfam which was directed against her personally as well as against the State of Israel remarked,”The closing of the SodaStream factory would leave the Palestinians destitute. That does not sound like a solution.”

The following questions must be asked in all seriousness. The United Methodist Church purports to be concerned with Christian social concerns. Does that Church, and the other groups that make up the Interfaith Boycott Coalition, really have “Christian concerns” about the Palestinians?

Is their animus against the Jewish State of Israel so strong that they are willing to harm the Palestinians about whose welfare they profess to be concerned?

Do all these groups really want to add to the unemployment rate of Palestinians in the West Bank which already stands at 35 percent? Instead of attacking SodaStream and endorsing a boycott would it not be more productive, and a sign of Christian and academic principles, if these groups endorsed SodaStream’s employment practices as a marker on the road to peace?

Mahmoud Abbas versus his Feet

Abbas: 'No way' for recognition of Israel as Jewish state

PA President adamantly refuses to acknowledge Israel's core request, says he stood up against US pressure in past and can do so again.

Associated Press

Published:  03.07.14, 14:25 / Israel News

The Palestinian president says there's "no way" he'll recognize Israel as a Jewish state and accept just a portion of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.



Palestinians fear the two demands will be key elements of a US peace proposal.


Related stories:

• Abbas threatens to quit talks, turn to 'international organizations'
• Obama's message for Netanyahu: Israel faces bleak future should talks fail
• Netanyahu in the US: It takes three to tango for Middle East peace 

Mahmoud Abbas says in comments published Friday by the official WAFA news agency that he withstood US pressure when he sought UN recognition for a state of Palestine and suggested he could do so again.


US Secretary of State John Kerry is to present ideas for the contours of a deal to Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Gaps between the sides remain wide after seven months of Kerry's mediation, and a framework by an April 29 deadline appears elusive.